the shades
  Of night hang lowering o’er the mountain’s brow;
  And hunger keen, and pungent thirst of blood,
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  Rouse up the slothful beast, he shakes his sides,
  Slow-rising from his lair, and stretches wide
  His ravenous jaws, with recent gore distained. 
  The forests tremble, as he roars aloud,
  Impatient to destroy.  O’erjoyed he hears
  The bleating innocent, that claims in vain
  The shepherd’s care, and seeks with piteous moan
  The foodful teat; himself, alas! designed
  Another’s meal.  For now the greedy brute
  Winds him from far; and leaping o’er the mound
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  To seize his trembling prey, headlong is plunged
  Into the deep abyss.  Prostrate he lies
  Astunned and impotent.  Ah! what avail
  Thine eye-balls flashing fire, thy length of tail,
  That lashes thy broad sides, thy jaws besmeared
  With blood and offals crude, thy shaggy mane
  The terror of the woods, thy stately port,
  And bulk enormous, since by stratagem
  Thy strength is foiled?  Unequal is the strife,
  When sovereign reason combats brutal rage.
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     On distant Ethiopia’s sun-burnt coasts,
  The black inhabitants a pitfall frame,
  But of a different kind, and different use. 
  With slender poles the wide capacious mouth,
  And hurdles slight, they close; o’er these is spread
  A floor of verdant turf, with all its flowers
  Smiling delusive, and from strictest search
  Concealing the deep grave that yawns below. 
  Then boughs of trees they cut, with tempting fruit
  Of various kinds surcharged; the downy peach,
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  The clustering vine, and of bright golden rind
  The fragrant orange.  Soon as evening gray
  Advances slow, besprinkling all around
  With kind refreshing dews the thirsty glebe,
  The stately elephant from the close shade
  With step majestic strides, eager to taste
  The cooler breeze, that from the sea-beat shore
  Delightful breathes, or in the limpid stream
  To lave his panting sides; joyous he scents
  The rich repast, unweeting of the death
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  That lurks within.  And soon he sporting breaks
  The brittle boughs, and greedily devours
  The fruit delicious.  Ah! too dearly bought;
  The price is life.  For now the treacherous turf
  Trembling gives way; and the unwieldy beast
  Self-sinking, drops into the dark profound. 
  So when dilated vapours, struggling heave
  The incumbent earth; if chance the caverned ground
  Shrinking subside, and the thin surface yield,
  Down sinks at once the ponderous dome, engulfed
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  With all its towers.  Subtle, delusive man! 
  How various are thy wiles! artful to kill
  Thy savage foes, a dull unthinking race! 
  Fierce from his lair, springs forth the speckled pard,
  Thirsting for blood, and eager to destroy;
  The huntsman flies, but to his flight