An impious, arrogant, and cruel brood; Expressing their original from blood.

The nations trembled with a pious fear; All anxious for their earthly thunderer:

What he himself had found on earth of late,
Lycaon's guilt, and his inhuman treat,)
He sigh'd, nor longer with his pity strove;
But kindled to a wrath becoming Jove;
Then call'd a general council of the gods;
Who, summon'd, issue from their blest abodes,
And fill the assembly with a shining train.
A way there is in heaven's expanded plain,
Which, when the skies are clear, is seen below,
And mortals by the name of milky know.
The ground-work is of stars; through, which
Lies open to the thunderer's abode. [the road
The gods of greater nations dwell around,
And on the right and left the palace bound;
The commons where they can; the nobler
sort,

With winding doors wide open, front the court.
This place, as far as earth with heaven may vie,
I dare to call the Louvre of the sky.
When all were plac'd, in seats distinctly known,
And he, their father, had assum'd the throne,
Upon his ivory sceptre first he leant,
Then shook his head, that shook the firmament:
Air, earth, and seas, obey'd the almighty nod,
And with a general fear confess'd the god.
At length, with indignation, thus he broke
His awful silence, and the powers bespoke.
I was not more concern'd in that debate
Of empire, when our universal state
Was put to hazard, and the giant race
Our captive skies were ready to embrace.
For though the foe was fierce, the seeds of all
Rebellion sprung from one original;
Now wheresoever ambient waters glide,
All are corrupt, and all must be destroy'd.
Let me this holy protestation make:
By hell, and hell's inviolable lake,
I tried whatever in the godhead lay;
But gangren'd members must be lopt away,
Before the nobler parts are tainted to decay.
There dwells below a race of demi-gods,
Of nymphs in waters, and of fawns in woods;
Who, though not worthy yet in heaven to live,
Let 'em at least enjoy that earth we give.
Can these be thought securely lodg'd below,
When I myself, who no superior know,
I, who have heaven and earth at my command,
Have been attempted by Lycaon's hand?

At this a murmur through the synod went, And with one voice they vote his punishment. Thus, when conspiring traitors dar'd to doom The fall of Cæsar, and in him of Rome,

*But gangren'd] Jupiter talks like a surgeon.

Br. J. W.

By thee, than that of heaven for Jove was

deem'd ;

Who with his hand and voice, did first restrain
Their murmurs, then resum'd his speech again.
The gods to silence were compos'd, and sate
With reverence due to his superior state.
Cancel your pious cares; already he
Has paid his debt to justice, and to me. [were,
Yet what his crimes, and what my judgments
Remains for me thus briefly to declare.
The clamours of this vile degenerate age,
The cries of orphans, and the oppressor's rage,
Had reach'd the stars; I will descend, said I,
In hope to prove this loud complaint a lie.
Disguis'd in human shape, I travell'd round
The world,and more than what I heard I found.
O'er Mænalus I took my steepy way,
By caverns infamous for beasts of prey.
Then cross'd Cyllene, and the piny shade,
More infamous by curst Lycaon made :
Dark night had cover'd heaven and earth, before
I enter'd his unhospitable door.

Just at my entrance, I display'd the sign
That somewhat was approaching of divine.
The prostrate people pray: the tyrant grins ;
And, adding profanation to his sins,
said he, and if a god appear,

I'll

try,

To prove his deity shall cost him dear. 'T was late; the graceless wretch my death

prepares,

When I should soundly sleep, opprest with
This dire experiment he chose, to prove [cares:
If I were mortal, or undoubted Jove;
But first he had resolv'd to taste my power:
Not long before but in a luckless hour,
Some legates sent from the Molossian state,
Were on a peaceful errand come to treat :
Of these he murders one, he boils the flesh
And lays the mangled morzels in a dish:
Some part he roasts; then serves it up so drest,
And bids me welcome to this human feast.
Mov'd with disdain, the table I o'erturu'd;
And with avenging flames the palace burn'd
The tyrant, in a fright, for shelter gains
The neighb'ring fields, and scours along the
plains.

Howling he fled, and fain he would have spoke,
But human voice his brutal tongue forsook.
About his lips the gather'd foam he churns,
And breathing slaughter,still with rage he burns
But on the bleating flock his fury turns.
His mantle, now his hide, with rugged hairs
Cleaves to his back; a farish'd face he bears;
His arms descend, his shoulders sink away,
To multiply his legs for chase of prey.

He grows a wolf, his hoariness remains,
And the same rage in other members reigns.
His eyes still sparkle in a narrower space,
His jaws retain the grin and violence of his face.
This was a single ruin, but not one
Deserves so just a punishment alone.
Mankind's a monster, and the ungodly times,
Confederate into guilt, are sworn to crimes.
All are alike involv'd in ill, and all
Must by the same relentless fury fall.

Thus ended he; the greater gods assent,
By clamours urging his severe intent;
The less fill up the cry for punishment.
Yet still with pity they remember man ;
And mourn as much as heavenly spirits can.
They ask, when those were lost of human birth,
What he would do with all his waste of earth?
If his dispeopled world he would resign
To beasts, a mute, and more ignoble line?
Neglected altars must no longer smoke,
If none were left to worship and invoke.
To whom the father of the gods replied:
Lay that unnecessary fear aside :
Mine be the care new people to provide.
I will from wondrous principles ordain
A race unlike the first, and try my skill again.
Already had he toss'd the flaming brand,
And roll'd the thunder in his spacious hand;
Preparing to discharge on seas and land:
But stopp'd, for fear, thus violently driven,
The sparks should catch his axle-tree of heaven.
Rememb'ring, in the Fates, a time, when fire
Should to the battlements of heaven aspire,
And all his blazing worlds above should burn,
And all the inferior globe to cinders turn.
His dire artillery thus dismiss'd, he bent
His thoughts to some securer punishment:
Concludes to pour a wat'ry deluge down;
And, what he durst not burn, resolves to drown.
The Northern breath, that freezes floods, he

binds;

With all the race of cloud-dispelling winds: The South he loos'd, who night and horror brings;

And fogs are shaken from his flaggy wings.
From his divided beard two streams he pours ;
His head and rheumy eyes distil in showers.
With rain his robe and heavy mantle flow:
And lazy mists are low'ring on his brow.
Still as he swept along, with his clench'd fist,
He squeez'd the clouds; the imprison'd clouds
resist:

The skies, from pole to pole, with peals resound:

And showers enlarg'd come pouring on the ground.

Then clad in colours of a various dye,
Junonian Iris breeds a new supply

To feed the clouds: impetuous rain descends;
The bearded corn beneath the burthen bends:
Defrauded clowns deplore their perish'd grain;
And the long labours of the year are vain.
Nor from his patrimonial heaven alone
Is Jove content to pour his vengeance down:
Aid from his brother of the seas he
craves,
To help him with auxiliary waves.
The wat'ry tyrant calls his brooks and floods,
Who roll from mossy caves, their moist abodes
And with perpetual urns his palace fill:
To whom, in brief, he thus imparts his will.
Small exhortation needs; your powers employ:
And this bad world (so Jove requires) destroy.
Let loose the reins to all your wat'ry store:
Bear down the dams, and open every door.

The floods, by nature enemies to land,
And proudly swelling with their new command,
Remove the living stones that stopp'd their

ground:

With inward trembling earth receiv'd the wound;

And rising streams a ready passage found.
The expanded waters gather on the plain,
They float the fields, and overtop the grain;
Then rushing onwards, with a sweepy sway,
Bear flocks, and folds, and lab'ring hinds away.
Nor safe their dwellings were; for, sapp'd by
floods,

Their houses fell upon their household gods..
The solid piles, too strongly built to fall,
High o'er their heads behold a wat'ry wall.
Now seas and earth were in confusion lost;:
A world of waters, and without a coast.

One climbs a cliff; one in his boat is borne, And ploughs above, where late he sow'd his

The fowls, long beating on their wings in vain,
Despair of land, and drop into the main.
Now hills and vales no more distinction know,
And levell'd nature lies oppress'd below.
The most of mortals perish in the flood,
The small remainder dies for want of food.
A mountain of stupendous height there stands
Betwixt the Athenian and Baotian lands,
The bound of fruitful fields, while fields they

were,

But then a field of waters did appear:
Parnassus is its name; whose forky rise
Mounts through the clouds, and mates the lofty
skies.

High on the summit of this dubious cliff,
Deucalion wafting moor'd his little skiff.
He with his wife were only left behind
Of perish'd man; they two were human kind.
The mountain-nymphs and Themis they adore,
And from her oracles relief implore.
The most upright of mortal men was he;
The most sincere and holy woman, she.

When Jupiter, surveying earth from high,
Beheld it in a lake of water lie,
That, where so many millions lately liv'd,
But two, the best of either sex, surviv'd,
He loos'd the northern wind; fierce Boreas flies
To puff away the clouds, and purge the skies:
Serenely, while he blows, the vapours driven
Discover heaven to earth, and earth to heaven.
The billows fall, while Neptune lays his mace
On the rough sea, and smooths its furrow'd face,
Already Triton, at his call, appears
Above the waves; a Tyrian robe he wears;
And in his hand a crooked trumpet bears.
The sovereign bids him peaceful sounds in-
spire,

And give the waves the signal to retire.
His writhen shell he takes, whose narow vent
Grows by degrees into a large extent;
Then gives it breath; the blast, with doubling
sound,

Runs the wide circuit of the world around.
The sun first heard it, in his early East,
And met the rattling echoes in the West.
The waters, listening to the trumpet's roar,
Obey the summons, and forsake the shore.

A thin circumference of land appears;
And Earth, but not at once, her visage rears,
And peeps upon the seas from upper grounds:
The streams, but just contain'd within their
bounds,

By slow degrees into their channels crawl;
And earth increases as the waters fall.
In longer time the tops of trees appear,
Which mud on their dishonour d branches bear.
At length the world was all restor❜d to view,
But desolate, and of a sickly hue:

Nature beheld herself, and stood aghast,
A dismal desert, and a silent waste.

Which when Deucalion, with a piteous look,
Beheld, he wept, and thus to Pyrrha spoke :
Oh wife, oh sister, oh, of all thy kind
The best and only creature left behind,
By kindred, love, and now by dangers join'd;
Of multitudes, who breath'd the common air,
We two remain; a species in a pair;
The rest the seas have swallow'd; nor have we
E'en of this wretched life a certainty.
The clouds are still above: and, while I speak
A second deluge o'er our heads may break.
Should I be snatch'd from hence, and thou re-
Without relief, or partner of thy pain, [main,
How couldst thou such a wretched life sustain?
Should I be left, and thou be lost, the sea,
That buried her I lov'd, should bury me.
Oh could our father his old arts inspire,
And make me heir of his informing fire,
That so I might abolish'd man retrieve,
And perish'd people in new souls might live!
But heaven is pleas'd, nor ought we to com-
plain,

That we, the examples of mankind remain.
He said the careful couple join their tears,
And then invoke the gods, with pious prayers.
Thus in devotion having eas'd their grief,
From sacred oracles they seek relief;
And to Cephisus' brook their way pursue :
The stream was troubled, but the ford they
knew.

With living waters in the fountain bred,
They sprinkle first their garments, and their head
Then took the way which to the temple led.
The roofs were all defil'd with moss and mire,
The desert altars void of solemn fire.

Before the gradual prostrate they ador'd,
The pavement kiss'd; and thus the saint im-
plor❜d.

O righteous Themis, if the powers above
By prayers are bent to pity, and to love;
If human miseries can move their mind;
If yet they can forgive, and yet be kind;
Tell how we may restore, by second birth,
Mankind, and people desolated earth.
Then thus the gracious goddess, nodding, said;
Depart, and with your vestments veil your head:
And stooping lowly down, with loosen'd zones,
Throw each behind your backs your mighty

mother's bones.

Amaz'd the pair, and route with wonder, stand,
Till Pyrrha first refus'd the dire command.
Forbid it heaven, said she, that I should tear
Those holy relics from the sepulchre.
They ponder'd the mysterious words again,
For some new sense; and long they sought in
vain.

At length Deucalion clear'd his cloudy brow,
And said; The dark enigma will allow
A meaning, which, if well I understand,
From sacrilege will free the god's command:
This earth our mighty mother is, the stones
In her capacious body are her bones : [fear
These we must cast behind. With hope and
The woman did the new solution hear;
The man diffides in his own augury,
And doubts the gods; yet both resolve to try.
Descending from the mount, they first unbind
Their vests, and veil'd, they cast the stones
behind :

The stones (a miracle to mortal view
But long tradition makes it pass for true)
Did first the rigour of their kind expel,
And suppled into softness as they fell;

From hence the surface of the ground with mud

And siime besmear'd (the fæces of the flood,)
Receiv'd the rays of heaven; and sucking in
The seeds of heat, new creatures did begin :
Some were of several sorts produc'd before;
But of new monsters earth created more.
Unwillingly, but yet she brought to light
Thee, Python, too, the wondering world to
fright,

And the new nations with so dire a sight.
So monstrous was his bulk, so large a space
Did his vast body and long train embrace:
Whom Phoebus basking on a bank espied,
Ere now the god his arrows had not tried,
But on the trembling deer, or mountain-goat;
At this new quarry he prepares to shoot.

warm;

And took the rudiments of human form;
Imperfect shapes, in marble such are seen,
When the rude chisel does the man begin;
While yet the roughness of the stone remains,
Without the rising muscles, and the veins.
The sappy parts, and next resembling juice,
Were turn'd to moisture, for the body's use:
Supplying humours, blood, and nourishment:
The rest, too solid to receive a bent,
Converts to bones; and what was once a vein,
Its former name and nature did retain.
By help of power divine, in little space,
What the inan threw, assum'd a manly face;
And what the wife, renew'd the female race.
Hence we derive our nature, born to bear
Laborious life, and harden'd into care.

The rest of animals, from teeming earth
Produc'd, in various forms receiv'd their birth.
The native moisture, in its close retreat,
Digested by the sun's ethereal heat,
As in a kindly womb, began to breed:
Then swell'd and quicken'd by the vital seed.
And some in less, and some in longer space,
Were ripen'd into form, and took a several face.
Thus when the Nile from Pharian fields is fled,
And seeks, with ebbing tides, his ancient bed,
The fat manure with heavenly fire is warm'd;
And crusted creatures, as in wombs, are form'd:
These, when they turn the glebe, the peasants
find:

Some rude, and yet unfinish'd in their kind:
Short of their limbs, a lame imperfect birth;
One half alive, and one of lifeless earth.

For heat and moisture, when in bodies join'd,
The temper that results from either kind,
Conception makes; and fighting, till they mix,
Their mingled atoms in each other fix.
Thus nature's hand the genial bed prepares
With friendly discord, and with fruitful wars.

store

Of his full quiver; and 't was long before
The expiring serpent wallow'd in his gore.
Then to preserve the fame of such a deed,
For Python slain, he Pythian games decreed,
Where noble youths for mastership should
strive,

To quoit, to run, and steeds and chariots drive.
The prize was fame, in witness of renown,
An oaken garland did the victor crown.
The laurel was not yet for triumphs borne,
But every green alike by Phœbus worn
Did, with promiscuous grace, his flowing locks
adorn

THE TRANSFORMATION OF DAPHNE INTO A LAUREL.

The first and fairest of his loves was she, Whom not blind fortune, but the dire decree Of angry Cupid forc'd him to desire: Daphne her name, and Peneus was her sire. Swell'd with the pride that new success attends, He sees the stripling, while his bow he bends, And thus insults him: Thou lascivious boy, Are arms like these for children to employ ? Know, such achievements are my proper claim; Due to my vigour and unerring aim: Resistless are my shafts, and Python late, In such a feather'd death, has found his fate. Take up thy torch, and lay my weapons by ; With that the feeble souls of lovers fry. To whom the son of Venus thus replied: Phoebus, thy shafts are sure on all beside ; But mine on Phoebus: mine the fame shall be Of all thy conquests, when I conquer thee.

He said, and soaring swiftly wing'd his

flight;

Nor stopp'd but on Parnassus' airy height.

Two different shafts he from his quiver draws
One to repel desire, and one to cause.
One shaft is pointed with refulgent gold,
To bribe the love, and make the lover bold:
One blunt, and tipt with lead, whose base allay
Provokes disdain, and drives desire away.
The blunted bolt against the nymph he drest :
But with the sharp transfix'd Apollo's breast.

Tho etamour'd deity pursues the chase;
The scornful damsel shuns his loath'd embrace;
In hunting beasts of prey her youth employs ;
And Phohe rivals in her rural joys.
With naked neck she goes, and shoulders bare,
And with a fillet binds her flowing hair.
By many suitors sought, she mocks their pains,
And still her vow'd virginity mantains.
Impatient of a yoke, the name of bride
She shuns, and hates the joys she never tried.
On wilds and wood she fixes her desire:
Nor knows what youth and kindly love inspire.
Her father chides her oft: Thou ow'st, says he,
A husband to thyself, a son to me.
She, like a crime, abhors the nuptial bed:
She glows with blushes, and she hangs her head.
Then, casting round his neck her tender arms,
Sooths him with blandishments, and filial

charms :

Give me my lord, she said, to live, and die,
A spotless maid, without the marriage-tie.
"T is but a small request; I beg no more
Than what Diana's father gave before.
The good old sire was soften'd to consent;
But said her wish would prove her punishment.
For so much youth, and so much beauty join'd,
Oppos'd the state, which her desires design'd.
The god of light, aspiring to her bed,
Hopes what he seeks, with flattering fancies
fed;

And is by his own oracles misled.
And as in empty fields the stubble burns,
Or nightly travellers, when day returns,
Their useless torches on dry hedges throw,
That catch the flames, and kindle all the row;
So burns the god, consuming in desire,
And feeding in his breast the fruitless fire:
Her well-turn'd neck he view'd (her neck was

bare)

And on her shoulders her dishevell'd hair:
Oh were it comb'd, said he, with what a grace
Would every waving curl become her face!
He view'd her eyes, like heavenly lamps that

shone;

He view'd her lips, too sweet to view alone, Her taper fingers, and her panting breast; He praises all he sees, and, for the rest, Believes the beauties yet unseen are best. Swift as the wind, the damsel fled away, Nor did for these alluring speeches stay:

Stay, nymph, he cried, I follow, not a foe: Thus from the Lion trips the trembling Doe: Thus from the Wolf the frighten'd Lamb re

moves,

And from pursuing Falcons fearful Doves; Thou shunn'st a god, and shunn'st a god that loves

Ah, lest some thorn should pierce thy tender foot,
Or thou shouldst fall in flying my pursuit!
To sharp uneven ways thy steps decline;
Abate thy speed and I will bate of mine.
Yet think from whom thou dost so rashly fly;
Nor basely born, nor shepherd's swain am I.
Perhaps thou know'st not my superior state;
And from that ignorance proceeds thy hate.
Me Claros, Delphos, Tenedos obey;
These hands the Patareian sceptre sway.
The king of gods begot me: what shall be,
Or is, or ever was, in fate, I see.
Mine is the invention of the charming lyre;
Sweet notes, and heavenly numbers I inspire.
Sure is my bow, unerring is my dart;
But ah! more deadly his who pierc'd my heart.
Med'cine is mine, what herbs and simples grow
In fields and forests, all their powers I know;
And am the great physician call'd below.
Alas, that fields and forests can afford
No remedies to heal their love-sick lord!
To cure the pains of love no plant avails;
And his own physic the physician fails.

She heard not half, so furiously she flies,
And on her ear the imperfect accent dies.
Fear gave her wings; and as she fled, the wind
Increasing spread her flowing hair behind;
And left her legs and thighs expos'd to view;
Which made the god more eager to pursue.
The god was young, and was too hotly bent
To lose his time in empty compliment:
But led by love, and fir'd by such a sight,
Impetuously pursu'd his near delight.

[far,

As when the impatient greyhound, slipt from
Bounds o'er the glebe, to course the fearful hare,
She in her speed does all her safety lay;
And he with double speed pursues the prey;
O'erruns her at the sitting turn, and licks
His chaps in vain, and blows upon the flix:
She scapes, and for the neighb'ring covert
strives,

And gaining shelter doubts if yet she lives:
If little things with great we may compare,
Such was the god, and such the flying fair:
She, urg'd by fear, her feet did swifty move,
But he more swiftly, who was urg'd by love.
He gathers ground upon her in the chase:
Now breathes upon her hair, with nearer pace
And just is fastening on the wish'd embrace.
The nymph grew pale, and in a mortal fright,
Spent with the labour of so long a flight;