deep.
A fate more dismal, and superior ills
Hang o’er his head devoted. When the moon,
Closing her monthly round, returns again
To glad the night; or when full orbed she shines
310
High in the vault of heaven; the lurking pest
Begins the dire assault. The poisonous foam,
Through the deep wound instilled with hostile rage,
And all its fiery particles saline,
Invades the arterial fluid; whose red waves
Tempestuous heave, and their cohesion broke,
Fermenting boil; intestine war ensues,
And order to confusion turns embroiled.
Now the distended vessels scarce contain
The wild uproar, but press each weaker part,
320
Unable to resist: the tender brain
And stomach suffer most; convulsions shake
His trembling nerves, and wandering pungent pains
Pinch sore the sleepless wretch; his fluttering pulse
Oft intermits; pensive, and sad, he mourns
His cruel fate, and to his weeping friends
Laments in vain; to hasty anger prone,
Resents each slight offence, walks with quick step,
And wildly stares; at last with boundless sway
The tyrant frenzy reigns. For as the dog
330
(Whose fatal bite conveyed the infectious bane)
Raving he foams, and howls, and barks, and bites.
Like agitations in his boiling blood
Present like species to his troubled mind;
His nature, and his actions all canine.
So as (old Homer sung) the associates wild
Of wandering Ithacus, by Circe’s charms
To swine transformed, ran grunting through the groves.
Dreadful example to a wicked world!
See there distressed he lies! parched up with thirst,
340
But dares not drink. Till now at last his soul
Trembling escapes, her noisome dungeon leaves,
And to some purer region wings away.
One labour yet remains, celestial Maid!
Another element demands thy song.
No more o’er craggy steeps, through coverts thick
With pointed thorn, and briers intricate,
Urge on with horn and voice the painful pack
But skim with wanton wing the irriguous vale,
Where winding streams amid the flowery meads
350
Perpetual glide along; and undermine
The caverned banks, by the tenacious roots
Of hoary willows arched; gloomy retreat
Of the bright scaly kind; where they at will,
On the green watery reed their pasture graze,
Suck the moist soil, or slumber at their ease,
Rocked by the restless brook, that draws aslope
Its humid train, and laves their dark abodes.
Where rages not oppression? Where, alas!
Is innocence secure? Rapine and spoil
360
Haunt even the lowest deeps; seas have their sharks,
Rivers and ponds inclose the ravenous pike;
He in his turn becomes a prey; on him
The amphibious otter feasts. Just is his fate
Deserved; but tyrants know no bounds;
A fate more dismal, and superior ills
Hang o’er his head devoted. When the moon,
Closing her monthly round, returns again
To glad the night; or when full orbed she shines
310
High in the vault of heaven; the lurking pest
Begins the dire assault. The poisonous foam,
Through the deep wound instilled with hostile rage,
And all its fiery particles saline,
Invades the arterial fluid; whose red waves
Tempestuous heave, and their cohesion broke,
Fermenting boil; intestine war ensues,
And order to confusion turns embroiled.
Now the distended vessels scarce contain
The wild uproar, but press each weaker part,
320
Unable to resist: the tender brain
And stomach suffer most; convulsions shake
His trembling nerves, and wandering pungent pains
Pinch sore the sleepless wretch; his fluttering pulse
Oft intermits; pensive, and sad, he mourns
His cruel fate, and to his weeping friends
Laments in vain; to hasty anger prone,
Resents each slight offence, walks with quick step,
And wildly stares; at last with boundless sway
The tyrant frenzy reigns. For as the dog
330
(Whose fatal bite conveyed the infectious bane)
Raving he foams, and howls, and barks, and bites.
Like agitations in his boiling blood
Present like species to his troubled mind;
His nature, and his actions all canine.
So as (old Homer sung) the associates wild
Of wandering Ithacus, by Circe’s charms
To swine transformed, ran grunting through the groves.
Dreadful example to a wicked world!
See there distressed he lies! parched up with thirst,
340
But dares not drink. Till now at last his soul
Trembling escapes, her noisome dungeon leaves,
And to some purer region wings away.
One labour yet remains, celestial Maid!
Another element demands thy song.
No more o’er craggy steeps, through coverts thick
With pointed thorn, and briers intricate,
Urge on with horn and voice the painful pack
But skim with wanton wing the irriguous vale,
Where winding streams amid the flowery meads
350
Perpetual glide along; and undermine
The caverned banks, by the tenacious roots
Of hoary willows arched; gloomy retreat
Of the bright scaly kind; where they at will,
On the green watery reed their pasture graze,
Suck the moist soil, or slumber at their ease,
Rocked by the restless brook, that draws aslope
Its humid train, and laves their dark abodes.
Where rages not oppression? Where, alas!
Is innocence secure? Rapine and spoil
360
Haunt even the lowest deeps; seas have their sharks,
Rivers and ponds inclose the ravenous pike;
He in his turn becomes a prey; on him
The amphibious otter feasts. Just is his fate
Deserved; but tyrants know no bounds;