370

The beasts are fled: earth rocks from pole to pole, Fear walks the world, and bows th' astonish'd soul: · Prone Athos flames, and, crush'd beneath the blow, Jove rives with fiery bolt Ceraunia's brow: The tempest darkens, blasts redoubled rave, Smite the hoarse wood, and lash the howling wave. Preventful of the storm, with prescient view The monthly signs and nightly orbs pursue, Whither cold Saturn's lingering star retires, Or swift Cyllenius shifts his wandering fires. But, chief, with frequent pray'r the gods implore,

And Ceres, chief, with annual feasts adore ;

375

When Winter flies, and Spring new robes the ground,
When mild the wine, and lambkins gaily bound, 380
When sweet to slumber on the grass reclin'd
Where the thick foliage murmurs to the wind;
The sky her temple, and the turf her shrine,
Her pure libation honey, milk, and wine;
Let the long choir with shouting pomp proceed,
And thrice round teeming fields the victim lead:
Nor let a blade beneath the sickle fall

Till to their roofs the swains the goddess call;

385

to cover him. The springs of waters were seen, and the foundations of the round world were discovered at thy chiding, O Lord.'-Warton.

367 Les animaux ont fui.' J'ai cru qu'on me pardonneroit d'avoir essayé de rendre la vivacité admirable de ce trait, produit, à ce qu'il me semble, par sa précision, et par le changement du présent en parfait. Je suis étonné que Dryden, écrivant dans une langue plus hardie que la nôtre, ait défiguré cet endroit par ce vers traînant et froid:

And flying beasts in forests seek abodes.-De Lille.

369 A mountain of Macedonia.

370 Mountains in Epirus.

376 Mercury, called Cyllenius from Cyllene, a mountain in Arcadia, where he was born.

Rude rustic.carols to her praise resound,
And, wreath'd with oak, in untaught measures bound.
Jove bade unerring signs to earth foreshow 391.
Rain, and fierce heat, and tempests swoln with snow;
And the moon warn when winds should rise or fall,
And cattle pasture near the sheltering stall.

395

400

Lo! to the gathering storm, amid the deep, The troubled ocean swells its billowy sweep, Loud rings the crash upon the mountain brow, Or the far shores resounding howl below, And hoarse and hoarser thickens in the gale The ceaseless murmur of the woodland vale. Huge billows threat the ship, when cormorants sweep Along the shore, and screaming fly the deep, When sea-coots hastening back with wanton wing Skim round the beach in many a sportive ring, And the lone hern his wonted moor forsakes, And o'er the clouds his flight aërial takes.

Oft shalt thou see, ere brooding storms arise,
Star after star glide headlong down the skies,
And, where they shot, long trails of lingering light
Sweep far behind, and gild the shades of night;
Oft the fall'n foliage wings its airy way,

And floating feathers on the water play.
When lightning flashes from the northern pole,
From east to west when thunders widely roll,

405

410

390 Un commentateur Anglois (Mr. Holdsworth) dit avoir vu des paysans Florentins danser et chanter dans le mois de Juillet, la tête couronnée de feuilles de chêne.-De Lille.

397 Along the woods, along the moorish fens

Sighs the sad genius of the coming storm;

And up among the loose, disjointed cliffs,

And fractured mountains wild, the brawling brook,
And cave presageful, send a hollow moan,
Resounding long in list'ning fancy's ear.'

VIR.

Thomson, quoted by Warton.

415

420

The deluge pours, and, fearful of the gale,
The wary seaman furls his dripping sail.
Not unforeseen the storm, th' aërial cranes
In the deep valley fly th' uprising rains;
The heifers gaze aloft where vapors sail,
And with wide nostril drink the distant gale;
The twittering swallow skims the pool around;
Along the marshes croaking frogs resound;
Ants, from roof'd cells bear out their eggs to day,
And wear, each following each, their narrow way.
The vast bow drinks; and, rustling on the wing, 425
From their wide plumes the rooks thick darkness
fling.

Then shalt thou view the birds that haunt the main,
Or where Cayster floods the Asian plain,

Dash forth large drops that down their plumage glide, Dance on the billows, dive beneath the tide,

430

In gay contention dip their wings in vain,
And prelude, as they sport, th' impending rain.
But o'er dry sands the crow stalks on alone,
Swells her full voice, and calls the tempest down.
Nor yet unconscious of the threatening gloom
The virgin labors o'er the nightly loom,
When sputtering lamps flash forth unsteady fire,
And round th' o'erloaded wick dull flames expire.

435

425 It was a vulgar opinion amongst the ancients that the rainbow drew up water with its horns. We find frequent allusions amongst the poets to this erroneous opinion. I shall content myself with one quotation from the Curculio of Plautus: where, as Lena, a drunken, crooked old woman, is taking a large draught of wine, Palinurus says, 'See how the bow drinks: we shall certainly have rain to-day.'-Martyn.

428 The Asian plain is the name of a fenny country, which receives the overflowings of the Cayster, a river of Asia, which rises in Phrygia Major, passes through Lydia, and falls into the Ægean sea near Ephesus. The country about this river being marshy, abounds with water-fowl.- Martyn.

Nor less, 'mid show'rs, propitious signs display

Returning sunshine, and unclouded day;
Then 'mid refulgent stars the orb of night
Seems like a sun to shed unborrow'd light:
Then nor the rack across the ether driv❜n,
Silvers with light-spun fleece the face of heav'n,
Nor halcyons, lov'd of Thetis, haunt the strand,
And to the sun their glittering plumes expand;
Nor swine the stubble toss: but dark and deep,
Low on the plain incumbent vapors sleep;
And the lone owl, that eyes the setting ray,

440

445

Pour from her tow'r in vain the nightly lay.
Lo! Nisus soars aloft through liquid air,
And claims sad vengeance for his purple hair:
Where with stretch'd wing swift Scylla cuts the skies,
Behind, on rustling plume, fierce Nisus flies;

450

And where swift Nisus tow'rs, her forward flight 455
Darts far away, and cleaves th' aërial height.
Hush'd their hoarse pipe, and prest to clearer notes,
Rooks to redoubled echoes strain their throats;

445 The king-fisher: Ceyx and Halcyone, on account of their mutual fidelity and love, were changed into king-fishers: and the gods ordained that during their incubation the ocean should be unruffled; an amiable superstition! The story is beautifully related in the eleventh book of Ovid's Metam. During the incubation the attachment of the male is unalterable. The sea-nymphs are said by Theocritus to be passionately fond of this bird.-Stawell.

451 Nisus, king of Acathoë or Megara, had a lock of purple hair, on which depended the security of the state. Scylla, his daughter, enamored of Minos, who had laid siege to Megara, cut off the fatal lock. Minos rejected her advances, and sailed to Crete without her. She plunged after him, and clung to the vessel that conveyed him, till her father, changed into a sea-eagle, hovered over her to tear her into pieces, when she loosed her hold, and was changed into a ciris, supposed to be a lark. Ovid's Metam. book viii.-Stawell.

Oft, wild with rapture, on the woodland height
Mingle the murmur of confused delight,
Sport in the foliage, and the storm at rest,
Revisit their young brood and blissful nest.

Not that I think their sense divinely giv'n,

460

Or prescience theirs, to mark the will of Heav'n:
But still through Nature's vast and varied range, 465
The air's vicissitudes, and season's change,

New instincts sway, and their inconstant mind
Shifts with the clouds, and varies with the wind:
Hence frisk the kine, mirth swells the woodland notes,
And rooks exulting strain their gurgling throats.

But if you watch the sun's revolving speed,
And moons, that moved in order'd course, succeed,
Then no vain signs shall mark the treacherous day,
Nor the fair night shall flatter and betray.
If, when the moon renews her refluent beam,
Through the dark air her horns obscurely gleam,
Along the wasted earth, and stormy main,
In torrents drives the congregated rain.
Or if with virgin blush young Cynthia blaze,
Tempestuous winds succeed the golden rays;
But if (unerring sign) the orb of night

470

475

480

Clear wheel through heav'n her fourth increasing light,

Rain nor rude blast shall vex that hallow'd day,
And thus the month shall glide serene away,
While rescued sailors on their native shore
With votive gifts the ocean.gods adore.

485

Alike, with orient beams, or western rays,
The prescient sun each future change displays:
Signs, that can ne'er deceive, the sun attend
At day's first dawn, or when the stars ascend.
When many a spot his rising lustre shrouds,
Half hid the disk beneath a vale of clouds,

490