The frighted wolf now swims among 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 levelled nature lies oppressed below. The most of mortals perished in the flood, The small remainder dies for want of food. Deucalion and Pyrrha were conveyed to the summit of Mount Parnassus, the highest mountain in Central Greece. According to Ovid, Deucalion now consulted the ancient oracle of Themis respecting the restoration of mankind, and received the following response: "Depart from the temple, veil your heads, loosen your girded vestments, and cast behind you the great bones of your parent." At length Deucalion discovered the meaning of the oracle--the bones being, by a very natural figure, the stones, or rocky heights, of the earth. The poet then gives the following account of the abatement of the waters, and of the appearance of the earth: "When Jupiter, surveying earth from high, Beheld it in a lake of water lie-- That, where so many millions lately lived, But two, the best of either sex, survived-- He loosed the northern wind: fierce Boreas flies To puff away the clouds and purge the skies: Serenely, while he blows, the vapors driven Discover heaven to earth and earth to heaven; The billows fall while Neptune lays his mace On the rough sea, and smooths its furrowed face. Already Triton [Footnote: Son of Neptune.] at his call appears Above the waves: a Tyrian robe he wears, And in his hands a crooked trumpet bears. The sovereign bids him peaceful sounds inspire, And give the waves the signal to retire. 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 contained 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 dishonored branches bear. At length the world was all restored to view, But desolate, and of a sickly hue: Nature beheld herself, and stood aghast, A dismal desert and a silent waste. When the waters had abated Deucalion left the rocky heights behind him, in obedience to the direction of the oracle, and went to dwell in the plains below. MORAL CHARACTERISTICS OF THE GODS, AND OF THEIR RULE OVER MANKIND.