gazed
  On those behind, till on the destined place
  She stooped, and couched amid the rising grass. 
     Cadmus salutes the soil, and gladly hails
  The new-found mountains, and the nameless vales,
  And thanks the gods, and turns about his eye
  To see his new dominions round him lie;
  Then sends his servants to a neighbouring grove
  For living streams, a sacrifice to Jove. 
  O’er the wide plain there rose a shady wood
40
  Of aged trees; in its dark bosom stood
  A bushy thicket, pathless and unworn,
  O’errun with brambles, and perplexed with thorn: 
  Amidst the brake a hollow den was found,
  With rocks and shelving arches vaulted round. 
     Deep in the dreary den, concealed from day,
  Sacred to Mars, a mighty dragon lay,
  Bloated with poison to a monstrous size;
  Fire broke in flashes when he glanced his eyes;
  His towering crest was glorious to behold,
50
  His shoulders and his sides were scaled with gold;
  Three tongues he brandished when he charged his foes;
  His teeth stood jagy in three dreadful rows. 
  The Tyrians in the den for water sought,
  And with their urns explored the hollow vault: 
  From side to side their empty urns rebound,
  And rouse the sleepy serpent with the sound. 
  Straight he bestirs him, and is seen to rise;
  And now with dreadful hissings fills the skies,
  And darts his forky tongues, and rolls his glaring eyes.
60
  The Tyrians drop their vessels in their fright,
  All pale and trembling at the hideous sight
  Spire above spire upreared in air he stood,
  And gazing round him, overlooked the wood: 
  Then floating on the ground, in circles rolled;
  Then leaped upon them in a mighty fold. 
  Of such a bulk, and such a monstrous size,
  The serpent in the polar circle lies,
  That stretches over half the northern skies. 
  In vain the Tyrians on their arms rely,
70
  In vain attempt to fight, in vain to fly: 
  All their endeavours and their hopes are vain;
  Some die entangled in the winding train;
  Some are devoured; or feel a loathsome death,
  Swoln up with blasts of pestilential breath. 
     And now the scorching sun was mounted high,
  In all its lustre, to the noonday sky;
  When, anxious for his friends, and filled with cares,
  To search the woods the impatient chief prepares. 
  A lion’s hide around his loins he wore,
80
  The well-poised javelin to the field he bore,
  Inured to blood, the far-destroying dart,
  And, the best weapon, an undaunted heart. 
     Soon as the youth approached the fatal place,
  He saw his servants breathless on the grass;
  The scaly foe amid their corps he viewed,
  Basking at ease, and feasting in their blood,
  ‘Such friends,’ he cries, ’deserved a longer date;
  But Cadmus will revenge, or share their