SEE! from the brake the whirring pheasant springs,
And mounts exulting on triumphant wings:
Short is his joy, he feels the fiery wound,
Flutters in blood, and panting beats the ground.
Ah! what avails his glossy, varying dyes,

His purple crest, and scarlet-circled eyes.
The vivid green his shining plumes unfold,

His painted wings, and breast that flames with gold?
Nor yet, when moist Arcturus clouds the sky,
The woods and fields their pleasing toils deny.
To plains with well-breath'd beagles we repair,
And trace the mazes of the circling hare,
(Beasts, urged by us, their fellow-beasts pursue,
And learn of man each other to undo):
With slaughtering guns the unwearied fowler roves,
When frosts have whiten'd all the naked groves;
Where doves in flocks the leafless trees o'ershade.
And lonely woodcocks haunt the watery glade,
He lifts the tube, and levels with his eye:
Straight a short thunder breaks the frozen sky:

Oft, as in airy rings they skim the heath,
The clamorous lapwings feel the leaden death;
Oft, as the mounting larks their notes prepare,
They fail, and leave their little lives in air.

SHOOTING.

HERE the rude clamour of the sportsman's joy,
The gun fast thundering, and the winded horn,
Would tempt the muse to sing the rural game:
How, in his mid-career, the spaniel, struck
Stiff by the tainted gale, with open nose,
Outstretch'd, and finely sensible, draws full,
Fearful, and cautious, on the latent prey;
As in the sun the circling covey bask
Their varied plumes, and watchful every way,
Through the rough stubble turn the secret eye,
Caught in the meshy snare, in vain they beat
Their idle wings, entangled more and more;

A. Pope.