Cnissodioctes, one who follows the steam of Though large to mine the human form appear,

PARNELL'S
Each strongly grasping, headlong plunge a foe,
Till countless circles whirl the lake below;
Down sink the mice in yielding waters drown'd;
Loud flash the waters; and the shores resound :
The frogs triumphant tread the conquer'd plain,
And raise their glorious trophies of the slain."

He spake no more, his prudent scheme imparts
Redoubling ardour to the boldest hearts.
Green was the suit his arming heroes chose,
Around their legs the greaves of mallows close;
Green were the beets about their shoulders laid,
And green the colewort, which the target made.
Form'd of the vary'd shells the waters yield,
Their glossy helmets glisten'd o'er the field:
And tapering sea-reeds for the polish'd spear,
With upright order pierc'd the ambient air.
Thus dress'd for war, they take th' appointed
height,

Poise the long arms, and urge the promis'd fight.

But now, where Jove's irradiate spires arise,
With stars surrounded in etherial skies,
(A soleum council call'd) the brazen gates
Unbar; the gods assume their golden seats:
The sire superior leans, and points to show
What wondrous combats mortals wage below:
How strong, how large, the numerous heroes stride,
What length of lance they shake with warlike
What eager fire their rapid march reveals! [pride!
So the fierce Centaurs ravag'd o'er the dales;
And so confirm'd, the daring Titans rose,
Heap'd hills on hills, and bid the gods be foes.
This seen, the Power his sacred visage rears,
He casts a pitying smile on worldly cares,
And asks what heavenly guardians take the list,
Or who the mice, or who the frogs assist?

Then thus to Pallas: "If my daughter's mind
Have join'd the mice, why stays she still behind?
Drawn forth by savoury steams they wind their
And sure attendance round thine altar pay, [way,
Where while the victims gratify their taste,
They sport to please the goddess of the feast."

Thus spake the ruler of the spacious skies.
But thus, resolv'd, the blue-ey'd maid replies:
In vain, my father! all their dangers plead,
To such thy Pallas never grants her aid.
My flowery wreaths they etulantly spoil,
And rob my crystal lamps of feeding oil.
(Ills following ills!) but what afflicts me more,
My veil that idle race profanely tore.
The web was curious, wrought with art divine;
Relentless wretches! all the work was mine!
Along the loom the purple warp I spread,
Cast the light shoot, and crost the silver thread;
In this their teeth a thousand breaches tear,
The thousand breaches skilful hands repair,
For which, vile earthly duns thy daughter grieve
(The gods, that use no coin, have none to give,
And learning's goddess never less can owe,
Neglected learning gains no wealth below).
Nor let the frogs to win my succour sue,
Those clamorous fools have lost my favour too.
For late, when all the conflict ceas'd at night,
When my stretch'd sinews work'd with eager fight,
When spent with glorious toil, I left the field,
And sunk for slumber on my swelling shield;
Lo, from the deep, repelling sweet repose,
With noisy croakings half the nation rose:
Devoid of rest, with aching brows I lay,
Till cocks proclaim'd the crimson dawn of day.
Let all, like me, from either host forbear,
Nor tempt the flying furies of the spear;

POEMS.

Let heavenly blood (or what for blood may flow)
Adorn the conquest of a meaner foe.

Some daring mouse may meet the wondrous odds,
Though gods oppose, and brave the wounded gods.
O'er gilded clouds reclin'd, the danger view,
And be the wars of mortals scenes for you."

So mov'd the blue-ey'd queen; her words per-
Great Jove assented, and the rest obey'd. [suade,

BOOK III.

Now front to front the marching armies shine,
Halt ere they meet, and form the lengthening line:
Give the loud signal to the rushing war; [sound,
The chiefs conspicuous seen and heard afar,
Their dreadful trumpets deep-mouth'd hornets
The sounding charge remurmurs o'er the ground,
Ev'n Jove proclaims a field of horrour nigh,
And rolls low thunder through the troubled sky.
First to the fight large Hypsiboas flew,
And brave Lychenor with a javelin slew.
The luckless warrior, fill'd with generous flame,
Stoed foremost glittering in the post of fame;
The mouse fell thundering, and the target rung;
When, in his liver struck, the javelin hung,
Prone to the ground, he sinks his closing eye,
And soil'd in dust his lovely tresses lie.

A spear at Pelion Troglodytes cast,
The missive spear within the bosom past;
Death's sable shades the fainting frog surround,
And life's red tide runs ebbing from the wound.
Embasichytros feit Scutlaus' dart

Transfix and quiver in his panting heart;
But great Artophagus aveng'd the slain,
And Polyphonus dies, a frog renown'd
And big Scutlæus tumbling loads the plain,
For boastful speech, and turbulence of sound;
Deep through the belly picre'd, supine he lay,
And breath'd his soul against the face of day.

The strong Lymnocharis, who view'd with ire
A victor triumph, and a friend expire;
With heaving arms a rocky fragment caught,
And fiercely flung where Troglodytes fought
(A warrior vers'd in arts, of sure retreat,
But arts in vain elude impending fate);
Full on his sinewy neck the fragment fell,
And o'er his eye-lids clouds eternal dwell.
Lychenor (second of the glorious name)
Striding advanc'd, and took no wandering aim;
Through all the frogs the shining javelin flies,
And near the vanquish'd mouse the victor dies.

The dreadful stroke Crambophagus affrights,
Long bred to banquets, less inur'd to fights,
Heedless he runs, and stumbles o'er the steep,
And wildly floundering flashes up the deep;
Lychenor, following with a downward blow,
Reach'd in the lake his unrecover'd foe;
Gasping he rolls, a purple stream of blood
Distains the surface of the silver flood; [throng,
And slow the breathless carcass floats along.
Through the wide wound the rushing entrails

Lymnisius good Tyroglyphus assails,
Prince of the mice that haunt the flowery vales,
Lost to the milky fares and rural seat,
He came to perish on the bank of fate.

The dread Pternoglyphus demands the fight
Which tender Calaminthius shuns by flight,
Drops the green target, springing quits the foe,
Glides through the lake, and safely dives below.

But dire Pternophagus divides his way
Through breaking ranks, and leads the dreadful
day.

No nibbling prince excell'd in fierceness more,
His parents fed him on the savage boar;
But where his lance the field with blood imbrued,
Swift as he mov'd Hydrocharis pursued,
Til fallen in death he lies, a shattering stone
Sounds on the neck, and crushes all the bone.
His blood pollutes the verdure of the plain,
And from his nostrils bursts the gushing brain.
Lychopinax with Borborocates fights,
A blameless frog, whom humbler life delights;
The fatal javelin unrelenting flies,

And darkness seals the gentle croaker's eyes.
Incens'd Prassophagus, with spritely bound,
Bears Cnissodioctes off the rising ground,
Then drags him o'er the lake depriv'd of breath,
And, downward plunging, sinks his soul to death.
But now the great Psycarpax shines afar
(Scarce he so great whose loss provok'd the war);
Swift to revenge his fatal javelin fled,

And through the liver struck Pelusius dead;
His freckled corpse before the victor fell,
His soul indignant sought the shades of Hell.

This saw Pelobates, and from the flood
Heav'd with both hands a monstrous mass of mud;
The cloud obscene o'er all the hero fiies,
Dishonours his brown face, and blots his eyes.
Enrag'd, and wildly sputtering, from the shore
A stone, immense of size, the warrior bore,
A load for labouring Earth, whose bulk to raise,
Asks ten degenerate mice of modern days.
Full on the leg arrives the crushing wound:
The frog, supportless, writhes upon the ground.
Thus flush'd, the victor wars with matchless
[force,
Till loud Craugasides arrests his course.
Hoarse croaking threats precede! with fatal speed
Deep through the belly ran the pointed reed,
Then, strongly turg'd, return'd imbrued with gore,
And on the pile his reeking entrails bore.

The lame Sitophagus, oppress'd with pain,
Creeps from the desperate dangers of the plain;
And where the ditches rising weeds supply
To spread their lowly shades beneath the sky,
There lurks the silent mouse reliev'd from heat,
And, safe embower'd, avoids the chance of fate.
But here Troxartas, Physignathus there,
Whirl the dire furies of the pointed spear;
But where the foot around its ankle plies,
Troxartas wounds, and Physignathus flies,
Halts to the pool, a safe retreat to find,
And trails a dangling length of leg behind.
The mouse still ures, still the frog retires,
And half in anguish of the flight expires.

Then pious ardour young Pressæus brings
Betwixt the fortunes of contending kings:
Lank harmless frog! with forces hardly grown,
He darts the reed in combat not his own,
Which faintly tinkling on Troxartas' shield,
Hangs at the point, and drops upon the field.

Now nobly towering o'er the rest appears
A gallant prince that far transcends his years,
Pride of his sire, and glory of his house,
And more a Mars in combat than a mouse:
His action bold, robst his ample frame,
And Meridarpax his resounding name.
The warrior, singled from the fighting croud,
Boasts the dire honours of his arms aloud;
Then strutting near the lake, with looks elate,
To all its nations threats approaching fate.

And such his strength, the silver lakes around
Might roll their waters o'er unpeopled ground,
But powerful Jove, who shows no less his grace
To frogs that perish, than to human race,
Felt soft compassion rising in his soul,
And shook his sacred head, that shook the pole.
Then thus to all the gazing powers began
The sire of gods, and frogs, and mice, and man:
"What seas of blood I view! what worlds of
[slain!
An Iliad rising from a day's campaign;
How fierce his javelin o'er the trembling lakes
The black-furr'd hero Meridarpax shakes!
Unless some favouring deity descend,
Soon will the frogs loquaci us empire end,
Let dreadful Pallas wing'd with pity fly,
And make her agis blaze before his eye:
While Mars refulgent on his rattling car,
Arrests his raging rival of the war."

He ceas'd, rechining with attentive head,
When thus the glorious god of combats said:
"Nor Pallas, Jove! though Pallas take the field,
With all the terrours of her hissing shield;
Nor Mars himself, though Mars in armour bright
Ascend his car, and wheel amidst the fight;
Not these can drive the desperate mouse afar,
Or change the fortunes of the bleeding war.
Let all go forth, all Heaven in arms arise,
Or lanch thy own red thunder from the skies,
Such ardent bolts as flew that wondrous day,
When heaps of Titans mix'd with mountains lay;
When all the giant race enormous fell,
And huge Enceladus was hurl'd to Hell."

'Twas thus th' armipotent advis'd the gods,
When from his throne the cloud-compeller nods,
Deep-lengthening thunders run from pole to pole,
Olympus trembles as the thunders roll.
Then swift he whirls the brandish'd bolt around,
And headlong darts it at the distant ground;
The bolt discharg'd, inwrap d with lightning flies,
And rends its flaming passage through the skies;
Then earth's inhabitants, the nibblers, shake,
And frogs, the dwellers in the waters, quake.
Yet still the mice advanc'd their dread design,
And the last danger threats the croaking line,
Till Jove, that inly mourn'd the loss they bore,
With strange assistants fili'd the frighted shore.

Pour'd from the neighbouring strand, deform'd to
They march, a sudden unexpected crew! [view,
Strong suits of armour round their bodies close,
Which, like thick anvils, blunt the force of blows;
In wheeling marches torn oblique they go;
With harpy claws their limbs divide below;
Fell sheers the passage to their mouth command;
From out the flesh their bones by nature stand;
Broad spread their backs, their shining shoulders

rise;

Unnumber'd joints distort their lengthen'd thighs;
With nervous cords their hands are firmly brac'd;
Their round black eye-balls in their bosom plac'd;
On eight long feet the wondrous warriors tread;
And either end alike supplies a head.
These, mortal wits to call the crabs agree,
The gods have other names for things than we.

Now where the jointures from their loins depend,
The heroes tail with severing grasps they rend.
Here, short of feet, depriv'd the power to fly,
There, without hands, upon the field they lie.
Wrench'd from their holds, and scatter'd all around,
The bended lances heap the cumber'd ground,
Helpless amazement, fear pursuing fear,
And mad confusion, through their host appear:

PARNELL'S POEMS.

O'er the wild waste with headlong flight they go,
Or creep conceal'd in vaulted holes below.

But down Olympus to the western seas
Far shooting Phoebus drove with fainter rays;
And a whole war (so Jove ordain'd) begun,
Was fought, and ceas'd, in one revolving sun.

TO MR. POPE.

To praise, yet still with due respect to praise,
A bard triumphant in immortal bays,
The learn'd to show, the sensible commend,
Yet still preserve the province of the friend,
What life, what vigour, must the lines require?
What music tune them? what affection fire?

O might thy genius in my bosom shine!
Thou should'st not fail of numbers worthy thine,
The brightest ancients might at once agree
To sing within my lays, and sing of thee.
Horace himself would own thou dost excel
In candid arts to play the critic well.
Ovid himself might wish to sing the dame
Whom Windsor Forest sees a gliding stream,
On silver feet, with annual osier crown'd,
She runs for ever through poetic ground.

How flame the glories of Belinda's hair,
Made by thy Muse the envy of the fair!
Less shone the tresses Egypt's princess wore,
Which sweet Callimachus so sung before.
Here courtly tresses set the world at odds,
Belles war with beaux, and whims descend for
The new machines, in names of ridicule,
Mock the grave phrenzy of the chymic fool.
[gods.
But know, ye fair, a point conceal'd with art,
The Sylphs and Gnomes are but a woman's heart:
The Graces stand in sight, a Satyr train
Peep o'er their heads, and laugh behind the scene.
In Fame's fair temple, o'er the boldest wits
Inshrin'd on high the sacred Virgil sits,
And sits in measures, such as Virgil's Muse
To place thee near him might be fond to choose.
How might he tune th' alternate reed with thee,
Perhaps a Strephon thou, a Daphnis he,
While some old Damon, o'er the vulgar wise,
Thinks he deserves, and thou deserv'st the prize.
Rapt with the thought, my fancy seeks the plains,
And turns me shepherd while I hear the strains,
Indulgent nurse of every tender gale,
Parent of flowerets, old Arcadia, hail!
Here in the cool my limbs at ease I spread,
Here let thy poplars whisper o'er my head,
Still slide thy waters soft among the trees;
Thy aspins quiver in a breathing breeze,
Smile all thy valleys in eternal spring,
Be hush'd ye winds! while Pope and Virgil sing.
In English lays, and all sublimely great,
Thy Homer warms with all his ancient heat,
He shines in council, thunders in the fight,
And flames with every sense of great delight.
Long has that poet reign'd, and long unknown,
Like monarchs sparkling on a distant throne;
In all the majesty of Greece retir'd,
Himself unknown, his mighty name admir'd,
His language failing, wrapp'd him round with night,
Thine, rais'd by thee, recalls the work to light,
So wealthy mines, that ages long before
Fed the large realms around with golden ore,
When choak'd by sinking banks, no more appear,
And shepherds only say, The mines were here!

Should some rich youth (if Nature warm his heart,
And all his projects stand inform'd with art)
Here clear the caves, there ope the leading vein;
The mines detected flame with gold again.

How vast, how copious, are thy new designs!
How every music varies in thy lines!
Still as I read, I feel my bosom beat,
And rise in raptures by another's heat.
Thus in the wood, when Summer dress'd the days,
When Windsor lent us tuneful hours of ease,
Our ears the lark, the thrush, the turtle blest;
And Philomela, sweetest o'er the rest:
The shades resound with song-O softly tread!
While a whole season warbles round my head.

This to my friend-and when a friend inspires,
My silent harp its master's hand requires,
Shakes off the dust, and makes these rocks resound,
For Fortune plac'd me in unfertile ground;
Far from the joys that with my soul agree,
From wit, from learning,-far, oh far from thee!
Here moss-grown trees expand the smallest leaf,
Here half an acre's corn is half a sheaf,
Here hills with naked heads the tempest meet,
Rocks at their side, and torrents at their feet,
Or lazy lakes, unconscious of a flood,
Whose dull brown Naiads ever sleep in mud.

Yet here Content can dwell, and learned Ease,
A friend delight me, and an author please;
Ev'n here I sing, while Pope supplies the theme,
Show my own love, though not increase his fame.

A TRANSLATION

OF PART OF THE

FIRST CANTO OF THE RAPE OF THE LOCK,
INTO LEONINE VERSE,

AFTER THE MANNER OF THE ANCIENT MONKS.

Er nunc dilectum speculum, pro more retectum,
Emicat in mensâ, quæ splendet pyxide densâ :
Tum primum lymphâ, se purgat candida nympha;
Jamque sine mendâ, cœlestis imago videnda,
Nuda caput, bellos retinet, regit, implet, ocellos.
Inferior claram Pythonissa apparet ad aram,
Hâc stupet explorans, seu cultus numen adorans.
Fertque tibi cautè, dicatque superbia! lautè,
Dona venusta; oris, quæ cunctis, plena laboris,
Excerpta explorat, dominamque deamque decorat.
Pyxide devotâ, se pandit hic India tota,
Et tota ex istâ transpira Arabia cista:
Testudo hic flectit, dum se mea Lesbia pectit;
Atque elephas lentè, te pectit Lesbia dente;
Hunc maculis nôris, nivei jacet ille coloris,
Hic jacet et mundè, muudus muliebris abundè ;
Spinula resplendens æris longo ordine pendens,
Pulvis suavis odore, et epistola suavis amore.
In luit arma ergo, Veneris pulcherrima virgo;
Pulchrior in præsens tempus de tempore crescens;
Jam reparat risus, jam surgit gratiâ visûs,
Jam promit cultu, mirac'la latentia vultu.
Pigmina jam miscet, quo plus sua purpura gliscet,
Stant Lemures muti, Nymphæ intentique saluti,
Et geminans bellis splendet magè fulgor ocellis.
Hic figit zonam, capiti, locat ille coronam,
Hæc manicis formam, plicis dat et altera nor-

mam;

Et tibi vel Betty, tibi vel nitidissima Letty!
Gloria factorum temerè conceditur horum.