When spent with glorious toil, I left the field,
And funk for flumber on my swelling shield;
Lo from the deep, repelling sweet repose,
With noify croakings half the nation rose :
Devoid of reft, with aching brows I lay,
'Till cocks proclam'd the crimson dawn of day.
Let all, like me, from either hoft forbear,
Nor tempt the flying furies of the spear,
Let heav'nly blood (or what for blood may flow)
Adorn the conqueft of a meaner foe.
Some daring Mouse may meet the wond'rous odds, Tho' Gods oppose, and brave the wounded Gods. O'er guilded clouds reclin'd, the danger view,
And be the wars of mortals scenes for you.
So mov'd the blue-ey'd Queen; her words persuade, Great Jove affented, and the rest obey'd.
Give the loud fignal to the rushing war ;
Their dreadful trumpets deep-mouth'd hornets found,
The founded charge remurmurs o'er the ground,
E'n Jove proclaims a field of horror nigh,
And rolls low thunder thro' the troubled sky.
First to the fight large Hypfiboas flew,
And brave Lychenor with a javelin flew.
The luckless warrior fill'd with gen'rous flame,
Stood foremoft glitt'ring in the post of fame;
When in his liver ftruck, the javelin hung,
The Mouse fell thund'ring and the target rung;
Prone to the ground, he finks his closing eye,
And foil'd in duft his lovely treffes lie.
A fpear at Pelion Troglodites caft,
The miffive fpear within the bosom paft;
Death's fable fhades the fainting Frog furround,
And life's red tide runs ebbing from the wound.
Embafichytros felt Scutlæus' dart
Transfix, and quiver in his painting heart ;
But great Artophagus aveng'd the flain,
And big Scutlæus tumbling loads the plain,
And Polyphonus dies, a Frog renown'd,
For boaftful speech and turbulence of found,
Deep thro' the belly pierc'd, fupine he lay ;
And breath'd his foul against the face of day.
The strong Lymnocharis, who view'd with ire,
A victor triumph, and a friend expire;
With heaving arms a rocky fragment caught,
And fiercely flung where Troglodites fought;
{A warrior vers❜d in arts, of fure retreat,
But arts in vain elude impending fate ;)
Full on his finewy neck the fragment fell,
And o'er his eye-lids clouds eternal dwell.
Lychenor (fecond of the glorious name)
Striding advanc'd, and took no wand'ring aim
Thro' all the Frog the shining jav❜lin flies,
And near the vanquish'd Mouse the victor dies.
The dreadful ftroke Crambophagus affrights,
Long bred to banquets, less inur'd to fights,
Heedless he runs, and ftumbles o'er the steep,
And wildly flound'ring flashes up the deep;
Lychenor following with a downward blow,
Reach'd in the lake his unrecover'd foe;
Gafping he rolls, a purple stream of blood
Diftains the furface of the filver flood;
Thro' the wide wound the rushing entrails throng,
And flow the breathlefs carcass floats along.
Lymnifius good Tyroglyphus affails,
Prince of the Mice that haunt the flow'ry vales,
Loft to the milky fares and rural feat,
He came to perish on the bank of fate.
The dread Pternoglyphus demands the fight,
Which tender Calaminthius fhuns by flight,
Drops the green target, springing quits the foe,
Glides thro' the lake, and fafely dives below.
But dire Pternophagus divides his way
Thro' breaking ranks, and leads the dreadful day.
No nibbling prince excell'd in fiercenefs more,
His parents fed him on the favage boar;
But where his lance the field with blood imbru'd,
Swift as he mov'd Hydrocharis pursu'd.
'Till fall'n in death he lies, a fhatt'ring stone
Sounds on the neck, and crushes all the bone,
His blood pollutes the verdure of the plain,
And from his noftrils burfts the gushing brain.
Lychopinax with Borbocætes fights,
A blameless Frog, whom humbler life delights;
The fatal jav'lin unrelenting flies,
And darkness feals the gentle Croaker's eyes.
Incens'd Praffophagus with spritely bound,
Bears Cniffiodortes off the rifing ground,
Then drags him o'er the lake depriv'd of breath,
And downward plunging, finks his foul to death.
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