While far she flies, her scatter'd eggs are found,
Without an owner on the sandy ground;
Cast out on fortune, they at mercy lie,
And borrow life from an indulgent sky;
Adopted by the Sun, in blaze of day,
They ripen under his prolific ray;
Unmindful she that some unhappy tread
May crush her young in their neglected bed:
What time she skims along the field with speed,
She scorns the rider, and pursuing steed. †

How rich the peacock! ‡ what bright glories run
From plume to plume, and vary in the sun!

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thing peculiarly belonging to the thing described. A likeness is lost in too much description, as a meaning often in too much illustration.

*Here is marked another peculiar quality of this creature, which neither flies nor runs directly, but has a motion composed of both, and, using its wings as sails, makes great speed.

Vasta velut, Lybiæ venantum vocibus ales

Cum premitur, calidas cursu transmittit arenas,
Inque modum veli sinuatis flamine pennis
Pulverulenta volat------

Claud, in Eutr.

+ Xenophon says, Cyrus had horses that could overtake the goat and the wild ass, but none that could reach this creature. A thousand golden ducats, or an hundred camels, was the stated price of a horse that could equal their speed.

Though this bird is but just mentioned in my author, I could not forbear going a little farther, and spreading those beautiful plumes (which are there shut up) into half a dozen lines. The circumstance I have marked of his opening his plumes to the sun is true: Expandit colores adverso maxim sole, quia sic fulgenitus radiant. Plin. Ix. c. 20.

He proudly spreads them to the golden ray,
Gives all his colours, and adorns the day;
With conscious state the spacious round displays,
And slowly moves amid the waving blaze.

Who taught the Hawk to find, in seasons wise,
Perpetual summer, and a change of skies?

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When clouds deform the year, she mounts the wind,
Shoots to the south, nor fears the storm behind;
The sun returning, she returns agen,

Lives in his beams, and leaves ill days to men.

Tho' strong the Hawk, tho' practis'd well to fly,*

An eagle drops her in a lower sky;
An eagle, when deserting human sight,
She seeks the sun in her unweary'd flight:
Did thy command her yellow pinion lift
So high in air, and seat her on the clift,
Where far above thy world she dwells alone,

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And proudly makes the strength of rocks her own;
Thence wide o'er nature takes her dread survey,
And with a glance predestinates her prey? †
She feasts her young with blood, and, hov'ring o'er
Th'unslaughter'd host, enjoys the promis'd gore. 230

* Thuanus (De re Accip.) mentions a hawk that flew from Paris to London in a night.

And the Egyptians, in regard to its swiftness, made it their symbol for the wind; for which reason we may suppose the hawk, as well as the crow above, to have been a bird of note in Egypt.

The eagle is said to be of so acute a sight, that when she is so high in air that man cannot see her, she can discern the smallest fish under water. My author

Know'st thou how many moons, by me assign'd, Roll o'er the mountain Goat and forest Hind,* While, pregnant, they a mother's load sustain? They bend in anguish, and cast forth their pain. Hale are their young, from human frailties freed, Walk unsustain'd, and unassisted feed;

They live at once, forsake the dam's warm side,
Take the wide world with Nature for their guide;
Bound o'er the lawn, or seek the distant glade,
And find a home in each delightful shade.

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Will the tall Reem, which knows no lord but me, Low at the crib, and ask an alms of thee? Submit his unworn shoulder to the yoke,

Break the stiff clod, and o'er thy furrow smoke? Since great his strength, go trust him, void of care, Lay on his neck the toil of all the year;

accurately understood the nature of the creatures he describes, and seems to have been a naturalist as well as a poet, which the next note will confirm.

* The meaning of this question is, Knowest thou the time and circumstances of their bringing forth? for to know the time only was easy, and had nothing extraordinary in it; but the circumstances had something peculiarly expressive of God's providence, which makes the question proper in this place. Pliny observes, that the hind with young is by instinct directed to a certain herb called Seselis, which facilitates the birth. Thunder also (which looks like the more immediate hand of Providence) has the same effect, Psal. xxix. In so early an age to observe these things may style our author a Naturalist.

Volume IV.

I

Bid him bring home the seasons to thy doors,

And cast his load among thy gather'd stores.

Didst thou from service the Wild Ass discharge,
And break his bonds, and bid him live at large; 250
Thro' the wide waste, his ample mansion roam,
And lose himself in his unbounded home?
By Nature's hand magnificently fed,

His meal is on the range of mountains spread;
As in pure air aloft he bounds along,

He sees in distant smoke the city throng;
Conscious of freedom, scorns the smother'd train,
The threat'ning driver, and the servile rein.
Survey the warlike Horse! didst thou invest
With thunder his robust distended chest?
No sense of fear his dauntless soul allays;
'Tis dreadful to behold his nostrils blaze:
To paw the vale he proudly takes delight,
And triumphs in the fullness of his might:
High rais'd, he snuffs the battle from afar,

And burns to plunge amid the raging war;
And mocks at death, and throws his foam around,
And in a storm of fury shakes the ground.

How does his firm, his rising heart advance
Full on the brandish'd sword and shaken lance,
While his fix'd eyeballs meet the dazzling shield,
Gaze, and return the lightning of the field!
He sinks the sense of pain in gen'rous pride,
Nor feels the shaft that trembles in his side;

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270

280

But neighs to the shrill trumpet's dreadful blast
Till death, and when he groans, he groans his last.
But, fiercer still, the lordly Lion stalks;
Grimly majestic in his lonely walks;
When round he glares, all living creatures fly;
He clears the desert with his rolling eye.
Say, Mortal! does he rouse at thy command,
And roar to thee, and live upon thy hand?
Dost thou for him in forests bend thy bow,
And to his gloomy den the morsel throw,
Where bent on death lie hid his tawny brood,
And, couch'd in dreadful ambush, pant for blood;
Or stretch'd on broken limbs, consume the day,
In darkness wrapt, and slumber o'er their prey ?
By the pale moon they take their destin'd round,
And lash their sides, and furious tear the ground. 290
Now shrieks and dying groans the desert fill;
They rage, they rend; their rav'nous jaws distil
With crimson foam; and when the banquet's o'er
They stride away, and paint their steps with gore:
In flight alone the shepherd puts his trust,
And shudders at the talon in the dust.

Mild is my Behemoth, tho' large his frame;
Smooth is his temper, and repress'd his flame;
While unprovok'd. This native of the flood
Lifts his broad foot, and puts ashore for food;

*

300

* Pursuing their prey by night is true of most wild beasts, particularly the lion, Psal.civ. 20. The Arabians have one among their five hundred names for the lion, which signifies the bunter by moonshine.

Young.]

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