All this is done when first the western breeze
Becalms the year, and smooths the troubled feas,
Before the chattering fwallow builds her nest,
Or fields in Spring's embroidery are drest.
Mean-while the tainted juice ferments within,
And quickens as it works: and now are seen
A wondrous fwarm, that o'er the carcafs crawls
Of shapeless, rude, unfinish'd animals.
No legs at first the infect's weight sustain,
At length it moves its new-made limbs with pain; Now strikes the air with quiv'ring wings, and tries To lift its body up, and learns to rife;
Now bending thighs and gilded wings it wears
Full grown, and all the bee at length appears :
From every fide the fruitful carcass pours
Its fwarming brood as thick as fummer-show'rs, 405
Or flights of arrows from the Parthian bows,
When twanging ftrings first shoot'em on the foes.
Thus have I fung the nature of the bee,
While Cæfar, tow'ring to divinity,
The frighted Indians with his thunder aw'd,
And claim'd their homage, and commenc'd a god :'
I flourish'd all the while in arts of peace,
Retir'd and shelter'd in inglorious eafe:
I who before the songs of shepherds made,'
When gay and young my rural lays I play'd,
And fet my Tityrus beneath his fhade.
MILTON'S STYLE IMITATED,
IN A TRANSLATION OF A STORY OUT OF THE THIRD
LOST in the gloomy horrors of the night
We struck upon the coaft where Ætna lies,
Horrid and waste, its entrails fraught with fire,...
That now cafts out dark fumes and pitchy clouds,
Vast showers of ashes hov'ring in the fmoke;
Now belches molten stones and ruddy flamé
Incens'd, or tears up mountains by the roots,
Or flings a broken rock aloft in air:
The bottom works with smother'd fire, involv'd
In peftilential vapours, stench, and smoke.
'Tis faid that thunder-struck Enceladus, Grovelling beneath th' incumbent mountain's weight, Lies ftretch'd fupine, eternal prey of flames, i And when he heaves against the burning load, Reluctant, to invert his broiling limbs, A fudden earthquake shoots thro' all the isle,) And Etna thunders dreadful under ground, Then pours out smoke in wreathing curls convolv'd, And fhades the fun's bright orb, and blots out day.
Here in the shelter of the woods we lodg'd, 20 And frighted heard strange sounds and dismal yells, Nor faw from whence they came; for all the night. A murky storm deep louring o'er our heads Hung imminent, that with impervious gloom
Oppos'd itself to Cynthia's filver ray,
And shaded all beneath. But now the fun
With orient beams had chas'd the dewy night
From earth and heav'n; all Nature stood disclos'd;
When looking on the neighb'ring woods we faw
The ghastly visage of a man unknown,
An uncouth feature, meagre, pale, and wild;
Affliction's foul and terrible dismay
Sat in his looks, his face impair'd and worn
With marks of famine, speaking fore distress
His locks were tangled, and his shaggy beard
Matted with filth; in all things else a Greek.
He first advanc'd in hafte; but when he faw Trojans and Trojan arms, in mid career Stopt short, he back recoil'd as one furpris'd; But foon recov'ring speed, he ran, he flew Precipitant, and thus with piteous cries Our ears affail'd: "By Heav'n's eternal fires, "By ev'ry god that sits enthron'd on high, "By this good light, relieve a wretch forlorn, "And bear me hence to any diftant shore, "So I may shun this savage race accurst. "'Tis true I fought among the Greeks that late "With fword and fire o'erturn'd Neptunian Troy, "And laid the labour of the gods in dust; "For which, if fo the fad offence deserves,' "Plung'd in the deep, for ever let me lie
"The realms of Night inglorious, since I've liv'd
"Amidft thefe woods, gleaning from thorns and
"A wretched fuftenance. "As thus he spoke, [shrubs
We faw defcending from a neighb'ring hill.
Blind Polypheme: by weary steps and flow
The groping giant with a trunk of pine
Explor'd his way; around his woolly flocks
Attended grazing; to the well-known shore
He bent his course, and on the margin stood,
A hideous monfter, terrible, deform'd:
Full in the midst of his high front there gap'd
The fpacious hollow where his eyeball roll'd,
A ghaftly orifice; he rins'd the wound,
And wash'd away the ftrings and clotted blood
That cak'd within; then ftalking thro' the deep 120
He fords the ocean, while the topmost wave
Scarce reaches up his middle fide: we stood
Amaz'd be fure; a fudden horror chill
Ran thro' each nerve, and thrill'd in ev'ry vein,
Till using all the force of winds and oars
We fped away: he heard us in our course,
And with his outstretch'd arms around him grop'd,
But finding nought within his reack, he rais'd
Such hideous fhouts, that all the ocean fhook ;
Ev'n Italy, tho' many a league remote,
In diftant echoes anfwer'd; Ætna roar'd,
Thro' all its inmost winding caverns roar'd.
Rous'd with the found, the mighty family
Of one-ey'd brothers haften to the shore,
And gather round the bellowing Polypheme, ~- 135
A dire affembly! we with eager hafte
Work ev'ry one, and from afar behold
A host of giants covering all the shore.
So ftands a forest tall of mountain oaks
Advanc'd to mighty growth: the traveller
Hears from the humble valley where he rides
The hollow murmurs of the winds that blow
Amidst the boughs, and at the distance fees
The shady tops of trees unnumber'd rise,
A stately prospect, waving în the clouds.
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