Pompous incumbrance! a magnificence Useless, vexatious! for the wily fox, Safe in the increasing number of his foes, Kens well the great advantage: slinks behind, And slyly creeps through the same beaten track, And hunts them step by step; then views, escaped, With inward ecstasy, the panting throng In their own footsteps puzzled, foil’d, and lost. So, when proud Eastern kings summon to arms Their gaudy legions, from far distant climes They flock in crowds, unpeopling half a world; But when the day of battle calls them forth, To charge the well-train’d foe, a band compact Of chosen veterans, they press blindly on, In heaps confused, by their own weapons fall, A smoking carnage scatter’d o’er the plain. Nor hounds alone this noxious brood destroy: The plunder’d warrener full many a wile Devises, to entrap his greedy foe, Fat with nocturnal spoils. At close of day, He silent drags his trail; then from the ground Pares thin the close-grazed turf; there, with nice hand, Covers the latent death, with curious springs Prepared to fly at once, whene’er the tread [Sidenote: BOOK III THE CHASE v. 205-229.] Of man or beast, unwarily shall press The yielding surface: by the indented steel With gripe tenacious held, the felon grins, And struggles, but in vain: yet oft, ’tis known, When every art has fail’d, the captive fox Has shared the wounded joint, and, with a limb, Compounded for his life. But if, perchance, In the deep pitfall plunged, there’s no escape; But unreprieved he dies, and, bleach’d in air, The jest of clowns, his reeking carcase hangs. Of these are various kinds; not even the king Of brutes evades this deep devouring grave; But, by the wily African betray’d, Heedless of fate, within its gaping jaws Expires, indignant. When the orient beam With blushes paints the dawn, and all the race Carnivorous, with blood full-gorged, retire Into their darksome cells, there, satiate, snore O’er dripping offals, and the mangled limbs Of men and beasts, the painful forester Climbs the high hills, whose proud aspiring tops, With the tall cedar crown’d, and taper fir, Assail the clouds; there, ’mong the craggy rocks, And thickets intricate, trembling, he views His footsteps in the sand, the dismal road [Sidenote: BOOK III THE CHASE v. 230-254.]