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How rich the Peacock! * what bright glories run
From plume to plume, and vary in the fun!
He proudly spreads them, to the golden ray
Gives all his colours, and adorns the day;
With conscious ftate the fpacious round displays,
And flowly moves amid the waving blaze.

Who taught the Hawk to find, in feasons wise,
Perpetual fummer, and a change of skies?

When clouds deform the year, fhe mounts the wind,
Shoots to the fouth, nor fears the storm behind;
The fun returning, fhe returns again,

Lives in his beams, and leaves ill days to men.
Tho' ftrong the Hawk †, tho' practis'd well to fly,
An Eagle drops her in a lower fky;

An Eagle, when, deserting human fight,
She feeks the fun in her unweary'd flight:
Did thy command her yellow pinion lift
So high in air, and fet her on the clift,
Where far above thy world fhe dwells alone,

And proudly makes the strength of rocks her own;

A thoufand

the wild afs; but none that could reach this creature. golden ducats, or a hundred camels, was the stated price of a horfe that could equal their speed.

*Though this bird is but just mentioned in my author, I could not forbear going a little farther, and spreading thofe beautiful plumes (which are there shut up) in half a dozen lines. The circumftance I have marked of his opening his plumes to the fun is true: Expandit colores adverfo maxime fule, quia fic fulgentius radiant. Plin. l. x. c. 20.

+ Thyanus (de Re Accip.) mentions a hawk that flew from Paris to London in a night.

And the Egyptians, in regard to its fwiftnefs, made it their fymbol for the wind; for which reason we may suppose the hawk, as well as the crow above, to have been a bird of note in Egypt.

3

Thence

* Thence wide o'er nature takes her dread furvey,
And with a glance predeftinates her prey?
She feafts her young with blood; and, hov'ring o'er
Th' unflaughter'd hoft, enjoys the promis'd gore.

+ Know'ft Thou how many moons, by Me affign'd,
Roll o'er the mountain Goat, and foreft Hind,
While pregnant they a mother's load sustain ?
They bend in anguish, and cast forth their pain.
Hale are their young, from human frailties freed;
Walk unfuftain'd, and unaffifted feed;

They live at once; forfake the dam's warm fide;
Take the wide world, with nature for their guide;
Bound o'er the lawn, or feek the diftant glade ;
And find a home in each delightful shade.

Will the tall Reem, which knows no Lord but Me,
Low at the crib, and ask an alms of thee;
Submit his unworn fhoulder to the yoke,

Break the ftiff clod, and o'er thy furrow smoke?
Since great his ftrength, go truft him, void of care;
Lay on his neck the toil of all the year;

* The eagle is faid to be of fo acute a fight, that when he is fo high in air that man cannot fee her, fhe can difcern the smallest fish under water. My author accurately understood the nature of the creatures he describes, and feems to have been a Naturalift as well as a Poet, which the next note will confirm.

The meaning of this question is, Knoweft thou the time and cir cumftances of their bringing forth? For to know the time only was eafy, and had nothing extraordinary in it; but the circumstances had fomething peculiarly expreffive of God's Providence, which makes the question proper in this place. Pliny obferves, that the hind with young is by instinct directed to a certain herb called Sefelis, which facilitates the birth. Thunder alfo (which looks like the more immediate hand of Providence) has the fame effect. Pf. xxix. In fo early an age to obferve these things, may ftile our author a Naturalift

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Bid him bring home the seasons to thy doors,
And caft his load among thy gather'd ftores.

Didft thou from fervice the Wild-Afs difcharge,
And break his bonds, and bid him live at large,
Through the wide waste, his ample manfion, roam,
And lose himself in his unbounded home?
By nature's hand magnificently fed,

His meal is on the range of mountains spread s
As in pure air aloft he bounds along,
He fees in diftant smoke the city throng;
Conscious of freedom, fcorns the fmother'd train,
The threat'ning driver, and the servile rein.
Survey the warlike Horfe! didft Thou inveft
With thunder, his robuft diftended cheft?
No fenfe of fear his dauntless foul allays;

"Tis dreadful to behold his noftrils blaze;

To paw the vale he proudly takes delight,
And triumphs in the fulness of his might;
High-rais'd he fnuffs the battle from afar,
And burns to plunge amid the raging war;
And mocks at death, and throws his foam around,
And in a storm of fury shakes the ground.
How does his firm, his rifing heart, advance
Full on the brandifh'd fword, and fhaken lance;
While his fix'd eye-balls meet the dazzling shield,
Gaze, and return the lightning of the field!
He finks the sense of pain in gen'rous pride,
Nor feels the shaft that trembles in his fide;

But neighs to the shrill trumpet's dreadful blast
Till death; and when he groans, he groans his last.
But, fiercer ftill, the lordly Lion ftalks,

Grimly majestic in his lonely walks ;

When round he glares, all living creatures fly;
He clears the defart with his rolling eye.

Say, mortal, does he roufe at thy command,
And roar to 'Thee, and live upon thy hand?
Doft thou for him in forefts bend thy bow,
And to his gloomy den the morfel throw,
Where bent on death lie hid his tawny brood,
And, couch'd in dreadful ambush, pant for blood;
Or, stretch'd on broken limbs, confume the day,
In darkness wrapt, and flumber o'er their prey?
By the pale moon they take their destin'd round,
And lash their fides, and furious tear the ground.
Now fhrieks, and dying groans, the defart fill;
They rage, they rend; their rav'nous jaws diftil
With crimson foam; and, when the banquet's o'er,
They stride away, and paint their steps with gore;
In flight alone the shepherd puts his trust,
And fhudders at the talon in the duft.

*

Mild is my Behemoth, though large his frame;
Smooth is his temper, and represt his flame,
While unprovok'd. This native of the flood
Lifts his broad foot, and puts ashore for food;
Earth finks beneath him, as he moves along
To feek the herbs, and mingle with the throng.
See with what strength his harden'd loins are bound,
All over proof and shut against a wound.
How like a mountain cedar moves his tail!
Nor can his complicated finews fail.
Built high and wide, his solid bones surpass
The bars of steel; his ribs are ribs of brass;
His port majeftic, and his armed jaw,

Give the wide foreft, and the mountain, law.

* Pursuing their prey by night is true of most wild beasts, parti cularly the lion. Pf. cvi. 20. The Arabians have one among their 500 names for the lion, which fignifies the hunter by manshine.

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The mountains feed him; there the beasts admire
The mighty ftranger, and in dread retire:
At length his greatness nearer they survey,
Graze in his fhadow, and his eye obey.
The fens and marshes are his cool retreat,
His noontide shelter from the burning heat;
Their fedgy bofoms his wide couch are made,
And groves of willows give him all their shade.
His eye drinks Jordan up, when fir'd with drought,
He trufts to turn its current down his throat;
In leffen'd waves it creeps along the plain
* He finks a river, and he thirsts again.

+ Go to the Nile, and, from its fruitful fide,
Caft forth thy line into the fwelling tide:
With flender hair Leviathan command,
And stretch his vaftness on the loaded ftrand.
Will he become Thy fervant? Will he own
Thy lordly nod, and tremble at Thy frown?
Or with his fport amuse thy leisure day,
And, bound in filk, with thy foft maidens play?
Shall pompous banquets fwell with fuch a prize?
And the bowl journey round his ample fize?

Cepkef glaciale caput quo fuctus anhelam
Ferre fitim Python, amnemque avertere ponio.

Stat. Theb. v. 349.

Qui Spiris tegeret montes, hauriret biatu
Flumina, &c.

Claud. Pref. in Ruf.

Let not then this hyperbole feem too much for an eastern poet, though fome commentators of name ftrain hard in this place for a new construction, through fear of it.

The taking the crocodile is most difficult. Diodorus fays, they are not to be taken but by iron nets. When Auguftus conquered Egypt; he ftruck a medal, the imprefs of which was a crocodile chained to a palm-tree, with this infcription, Nemo antea religavit.

Or

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