But stop'd, for fear, thus violently driv'n,
The sparks should catch the axle-tree of heav'n.
Remembring in the fates, a time when fire
Should to the battlements of heaven aspire,
And all his blazing worlds above should burn;
And all the' inferior globe to cinders turn.
His dire artillery thus dismiss'd, he bent
His thoughts to some securer punishment:
Concludes to pour a watry deluge down ;
And what he durst not burn, resolves to drown.
The northern breath, that freezes floods, he binds,
With all the race of cloud-dispelling winds;
The south he loos'd, who night and horror brings;
And frogs are shaken from his flaggy wings.
From his divided beard two streams he pours,
His head and rheumy eyes distil in show'rs.
With rain his robe and heavy mantle flow,
And lazy mists are lowring on his brow;
Still as he swept along, with his clench'd fist
He squeez'd the clouds, the' imprison'd clouds resist:
The skies, from pole to pole, with peals resound;
And showers inlarg'd, come pouring on the ground.
Then, clad in colours of a various dye,

Junonian Iris breeds a new supply

To feed the clouds: impetuous rain descends; The bearded corn beneath the burden bends; Defrauded clowns deplore their perish'd grain; And the long labours of the year are vain.

Nor from his patrimonial heaven alone

Is Jove content to pour his vengeance down;
Aid from his brother of the seas he craves,
To help him with auxiliary waves.

The watry tyrant calls his brooks and floods,
Who roll from mossy caves (their moist abodes),

And with perpetual urns his palace fill:

To whom, in brief, he thus imparts his will.
'Small exhortation needs; your powers employ ;
And this bad world, so Jove requires, destroy.
Let loose the reins to all your watry store:
Bear down the dams, and open every door.'
The floods, by nature enemies to land,
And proudly swelling with their new command,
Remove the living stones that stop'd their way;
And, gushing from their source, augment the sea.
Then, with his mace, their monarch struck the

ground;

With inward trembling, earth receiv'd the wound;
And rising streams a ready passage found.
The' expanded waters gather on the plain :
They float the fields, and over-top the grain;
Then rushing onwards, with a sweepy sway,
Bear flocks and folds and labouring hinds away.
Nor safe their dwellings were; for, sap'd by floods,
Their houses fell upon their household gods.
The solid piles, too strongly built to fall,
High o'er their heads behold a watry wall:
Now seas and earth were in confusion lost;
A world of waters, and without a coast.

One climbs a cliff; one in his boat is borne,
And ploughs above, where late he sow'd his corn;
Others o'er chimney-tops and turrets row,
And drop their anchors on the meads below;
Or, downward driv'n, they bruise the tender vine,
Or, toss'd aloft, are knock'd against a pine.
And where of late the kids had crop'd the grass,
The monsters of the deep now take their place.
Insulting Nereids on the cities ride,

And wondering dolphins o'er the palace glide.

On leaves, and masts of mighty oaks, they brouse;
And their broad fins entangle in the boughs.
The frighted wolf now swims amongst the sheep;
The yellow lion wanders in the deep;
His rapid force no longer helps the boar;
The stag swims faster than he ran before.
The fowls, long beating on their wings in vain,
Despair of land, and drop into the main.
Now hills and vales no more distinction know;
And levell'd nature lies oppress'd below.
The most of mortals perish in the flood:
The small remainder dies for want of food.
A mountain of stupendous height there stands
Betwixt the' Athenian and Boeotian lands,
The bound offruitful fields, while fields they were;
But then a field of waters did appear:

Parnassus is its name; whose forky rise
Mounts through the clouds, and mates the lofty skies.
High on the summit of this dubious cliff,
Deucalion wafting, moor'd his little skiff.
He with his wife were only left behind
Of perish'd man; they two were human kind.
The mountain nymphs and Themis they adore,
And from her oracles relief implore.

The most upright of mortal men was he;
The most sincere, and holy woman, she.
When Jupiter, surveying earth from high,
Beheld it in a lake of water lie,

That where so many millions lately liv'd,
But two, the best of either sex, surviv'd;
He loos'd the northern wind; fierce Boreas flies
To puff away the clouds, and purge the skies:
Serenely, while he blows, the vapours driv❜n,
Discover heaven to earth, and earth to heaven.

The billows fall, while Neptune lays his mace
On the rough sea, and smooths its furrow'd face.
Already Triton, at his call, appears

Above the waves; a Tyrian robe he wears;
And in his hand a crooked trumpet bears.
The sovereign bids him peaceful sounds inspire,
And give the waves the signal to retire.

His writhen shell he takes; whose narrow vent
Grows by degrees into a large extent;

Then gives it breath; the blast, with doubling sound,
Runs the wide circuit of the world around.
The sun first heard it, in his early east,
And met the rattling echoes in the west.
The waters, listening to the trumpet's roar,
Obey the summons, and forsake the shore.
A thin circumference of land appears;
And earth, but not at once, her visage rears,
And peeps upon the seas from upper grounds;
The streams, but just contain'd within their bounds,
By slow degrees into their channels crawl;
And earth increases as the waters fall.
In longer time the tops of trees appear,

Which mud on their dishonour'd branches bear.
At length the world was all restor❜d to view;
But desolate, and of a sickly hue:

Nature beheld herself, and stood aghast,
A dismal desart, and a silent waste.

Which when Deucalion, with a piteous look
Beheld, he wept, and thus to Pyrrha spoke :
'Oh wife, oh sister, oh! of all thy kind
The best and only creature left behind;
By kindred, love, and now by dangers join'd ;
Of multitudes, who breath'd the common air,
We two remain: a species in a pair:

The rest the seas have swallow'd; nor have we
Ev'n of this wretched life a certainty.

The clouds are still above; and while I speak,
A second deluge o'er our heads may break.
Should I be snatch'd from hence,and thou remain,
Witlrout relief, or partner of thy pain,

How couldst thou such a wretched life sustain ?
Should I be left, and thou be lost, the sea
That buried her I lov'd should bury me.
Oh, could our father his old arts inspire,
And make me heir of his informing fire,
That so I might abolish'd man retrieve,
And perish'd people in new souls might live!
But heaven is pleas'd, (nor ought we to complain)
That we, the' examples of mankind, remain.'
He said the careful couple join their tears,
And then invoke the gods with pious prayers.
Thus, in devotion having eas'd their grief,
From sacred oracles they seek relief,
And to Cephisus' brook their way pursue:
The stream was troubled, but the ford they knew;
With living waters in the fountain bred,
They sprinkle first their garments and their head,
Then took the way which to the temple led.
The roofs were all defil'd with moss and mire,
The desart altars void of solenın fire.
Before the gradual, prostrate they ador'd;
The pavement kiss'd, and thus the saint implor'd.
'O righteous Themis! if the powers above
By prayers are bent to pity and to love;
If human miseries can move their mind;
If yet they can forgive and yet be kind;
Tell how we may restore, by second birth,
Mankind, and people desolated earth.'