Sweet Philomela, cease,- Or here I sit,
And silent lose my rapturous hour of wit :-
'Tis gone, the fit retires, the flames decay,
My tuneful Phoebus flies averse away:
His own Amycle thus, as stories run,
But once was silent, and that once undone.

"Let those love now, who never loved before; Let those who always loved, now love the more.”

HOMER'S

BATRACHOMUOMACHIA:

OR,

THE BATTLE OF THE FROGS AND MICE.

En Three Books.

Borboreates, who lies in the Pternoglyphus, a bacon

Prassophagus, an eater of Pternophagus, a bacon eater.

HOMER'S

BATTLE OF THE FROGS AND MICE, ETC.

BOOK I.

To fill my rising song with sacred fire,
Ye tuneful Nine, ye sweet celestial choir!
From Helicon's imbowering height repair,
Attend my labours, and reward my prayer.
The dreadful toils of raging Mars I write,
The springs of contest, and the fields of fight;
How threatening Mice advanced with warlike
grace,

And waged dire combats with the croaking race.
Not louder tumults shook Olympus' towers,
When earth-born giants dared immortal powers.
These equal acts an equal glory claim,
And thus the Muse records the tale of fame.

Once on a time, fatigued and out of breath,
And just escaped the stretching claws of death,
A gentle Mouse, whom cats pursued in vain,
Fled swift-of-foot across the neighbouring plain,
Hung o'er a brink, his eager thirst to cool,
And dipp'd his whiskers in the standing pool;
When near a courteous Frog advanced his head;
And from the waters, hoarse-resounding, said;-