Halts to the pool, a safe retreat to find,
And trails a dangling length of leg behind.
The Moufe ftill urges, ftill the Frog retires,
And half in anguifh of the flight expires:
Then pious ardor young Preffaeus brings,
Betwixt the fortunes of contending kings:
Lank, harmless Frog! with forces hardly grown,
He darts the reed in combats not his own,
Which faintly tinkling on Troxartes' shield,
Hangs at the point, and drops upon the field.
Now nobly tow'ring o'er the reft appears
A gallant prince that far tranfcends his years,
Pride of his fire, and glory of his house,
And more a Mars in combat than a Mouse:
His action bold, robuft his ample frame,
And Meridarpax his refounding name.
The warrior fingled from the fighting croud,
Boafts the dire honours of his arms aloud;
Then ftrutting near the lake, with looks elate,
To all its nations threats approaching fate.
And fuch his ftrength, the filver lakes around
Might roll their waters o'er unpeopled ground.
But pow'rful Jove, who fhews no lefs his grace
To Frogs that perish, than to human race,
Felt foft compaffion rifing in his foul,
And fhook his facred head, that shook the pole.
Then thus to all the gazing pow'rs began
The fire of Gods, and Frogs, and Mice, and Man.
What feas of blood I view! what worlds of flain!
An Iliad rifing from a day's campaign!
How fierce his jav'lin o'er the trembling lakes
The black-furr'd hero Meridarpax shakes!
Unlefs fome fav'ring deity defcend,
Soon will the Frogs loquacious empire end.
Let dreadful Pallas wing'd with pity fly,
And make her Aegis blaze before his eye:
While Mars refulgent on his rattling car,
Arrests his raging rival of the war.
He ceas'd reclining with attentive head,
When thus the glorious God of combats faid.
Nor Pallas, Jove! tho' Pallas take the field,
With all the terrors of her hiffing shield,
Nor Mars himself, tho' Mars in armour bright
Ascend his car, and wheel amidst the fight;
Not these can drive the defp'rate Moufe afar,
Or change the fortunes of the bleeding war.
Let all go forth, all heav'n in arms arise,
Or launch thy own red thunder from the skies.
Such ardent bolts as flew that wond'rous day,
When heaps of Titans mix'd with mountains lay,
When all the giant-race enormous fell,
And huge Enceladus was hurl'd to hell.
'Twas thus th' Armipotent advis'd the Gods, When from his throne the cloud-compeller nods, Deep lengthning thunders run from pole to pole, Olympus trembles as the thunders roll,
Then fwift he whirls the brandish'd bolt around,
And headlong darts it at the distant ground;
The bolt discharged inwrap'd with lightning flies,
And rends its flaming paffage thro' the skies,
Then Earth's inhabitants, the nibblers, fhake:
And Frogs, the dwellers in the waters, quake.
Yet still the Mice advance their dread defign,
And the last danger threats the croaking line,
'Till Jove, that inly mourn'd the lofs they bore,
With ftrange affiftants fill'd the frighted fhore.
Pour'd from the neighb'ring firand,deform'd to view,
They march, a fudden unexpected crew!
Strong futes of armour round their bodies clofe,
Which, like thick anvils, blunt the force of blows;
In wheeling marches turn'd oblique they go;
With harpy claws their limbs divide below;
Fell fheers the paffage to their mouth command;
From out the fleth their bones by nature ftand;
Broad spread their backs, their fhining shoulders rife;
Unnumber'd joints distort their lengthen'd thighs;
With nervous cords their hands are firmly brac'd;
Their round black eye-balls in their bofom plac'd;
On eight long feet the wond'rous warriors tread;
And either end alike fupplies a head.
Thefe, mortal wits to call the Crabs, agree;
The Gods have other names for things than we.
Now where the jointures from their loins depend,
The heroes tails with fev'ring grafps they rend,
Here, short of feet, depriv'd the pow'r to fly,
There, without hands, upon the field they lie.
Wrench'd from their holds, and scatter'd all around, The bending lances heap the cumber'd ground.
Helpless amazment, fear purfuing fear,
And mad confufion thro' their host appear:
O'er the wild waste with headlong flight they go, conceal'd in vaulted holes below.
But down Olympus to the western seas
Far-fhooting Phoebus drove with fainter rays;
And a whole war (fo Jove ordain'd) begun,
Was fought, and ceas'd, in one revolving fun.
O praise, yet still with due respect to praise, A Bard triumphant in immortal bays, The learn'd to show, the fenfible commend, Yet ftill preserve the province of the friend, What life, what vigour, muft the lines require? What mufic tune them? what affection fire?
O might thy genius in my bofom fhine! Thou should'st not fail of numbers worthy thine, The brightest ancients might at once agree To fing within my lays, and fing of thee.
Horace himself wou'd own thou dost excell In candid arts to play the critic well.
Ovid himself might wish to sing the dame
Whom Windfor Foreft fees a gliding stream,
On filver feet, with annual ofier crown'd,
She runs for ever thro' poetic ground.
How flame the glories of Belinda's hair,
Made by the Mufe the envy of the fair;
|