So long they flew with inconsiderate haste,
  That now their afternoon began to waste;
  And, what was ominous, that very morn
  The sun was enter’d into Capricorn;
  Which, by their bad astronomer’s account,
  That week the Virgin balance should remount. 600
  An infant moon eclipsed him in his way,
  And hid the small remainders of his day. 
  The crowd, amazed, pursued no certain mark;
  But birds met birds, and jostled in the dark: 
  Few mind the public in a panic fright;
  And fear increased the horror of the night. 
  Night came, but unattended with repose;
  Alone she came, no sleep their eyes to close: 
  Alone, and black she came; no friendly stars arose.

    What should they do, beset with dangers round, 610
  No neighbouring dorp,[126] no lodging to be found,
  But bleaky plains, and bare unhospitable ground. 
  The latter brood, who just began to fly,
  Sick-feather’d, and unpractised in the sky,
  For succour to their helpless mother call: 
  She spread her wings; some few beneath them crawl;
  She spread them wider yet, but could not cover all. 
  To augment their woes, the winds began to move,
  Debate in air, for empty fields above,
  Till Boreas got the skies, and pour’d amain 620
  His rattling hailstones mix’d with snow and rain.

    The joyless morning late arose, and found
  A dreadful desolation reign around—­
  Some buried in the snow, some frozen to the ground. 
  The rest were struggling still with death, and lay
  The Crows’ and Ravens’ rights, an undefended prey: 
  Excepting Martin’s race; for they and he
  Had gain’d the shelter of a hollow tree: 
  But soon discover’d by a sturdy clown,
  He headed all the rabble of a town, 630
  And finish’d them with bats, or poll’d them down. 
  Martin himself was caught alive, and tried
  For treasonous crimes, because the laws provide
  No Martin there in winter shall abide. 
  High on an oak, which never leaf shall bear,
  He breathed his last, exposed to open air;
  And there his corpse, unbless’d, is hanging still,
  To show the change of winds with his prophetic bill.

   The patience of the Hind did almost fail;
  For well she mark’d the malice of the tale;[127] 640
  Which ribald art their Church to Luther owes;
  In malice it began, by malice grows;
  He sow’d the Serpent’s teeth, an iron-harvest rose. 
  But most in Martin’s character and fate,
  She saw her slander’d sons, the Panther’s hate,
  The people’s rage, the persecuting state: 
  Then said, I take the advice in friendly part;
  You clear your conscience, or at least your heart: 
  Perhaps you fail’d in your foreseeing skill,
  For Swallows are unlucky birds to kill: