Nor will it less delight the attentive sage, To observe that instinct, which, unerring, guides The brutal race, which mimicks reason’s lore, And oft transcends. Heaven-taught, the roebuck swift Loiters at ease before the driving pack, And mocks their vain pursuit; nor far he flies, But checks his ardour, till the steaming scent, That freshens on the blade, provokes their rage. Urged to their speed, his weak deluded foes, Soon flag fatigued; strain’d to excess each nerve, Each slacken’d sinew fails; they pant, they foam: Then o’er the lawn he bounds, o’er the high hills Stretches secure, and leaves the scatter’d crowd, To puzzle in the distant vale below. [Sidenote: BOOK II THE CHASE v. 15-38.] ’Tis instinct that directs the jealous hare To choose her soft abode: with step reversed, She forms the doubling maze; then, ere the morn Peeps through the clouds, leaps to her close recess. As wandering shepherds, on the Arabian plains, No settled residence observe, but shift Their moving camp; now, on some cooler hill, With cedars crown’d, court the refreshing breeze; And then, below, where trickling streams distil From some penurious source, their thirst allay, And feed their fainting flocks. So the wise hares Oft quit their seats, lest some more curious eye Should mark their haunts, and by dark treacherous wiles Plot their destruction; or, perchance, in hopes Of plenteous forage, near the ranker mead, Or matted blade, wary and close they sit. When spring shines forth, season of love and joy, In the moist marsh, ’mong beds of rushes hid, They cool their boiling blood: when summer suns Bake the cleft earth, to thick wide-waving fields Of corn full grown, they lead their helpless young: But when autumnal torrents, and fierce rains Deluge the vale, in the dry crumbling bank Their forms they delve, and cautiously avoid [Sidenote: BOOK II THE CHASE v. 39-63.]