Raving, he foams, and howls, and barks, and bites! Like agitations in his boiling blood, Present like species to his troubled mind; His nature, and his actions, all canine. So, as old Homer sung, the associates wild Of wandering Ithacus, by Circe’s charms To swine transformed, ran gruntling through the groves, Dreadful example to a wicked world! See, there distress’d he lies! parch’d up with thirst, But dares not drink; till now, at last, his soul Trembling escapes, her noisome dungeon leaves, And to some purer region wings away. One labour yet remains, celestial Maid! Another element demands thy song. No more o’er craggy steeps, through coverts thick With pointed thorn, and briers intricate, Urge on, with horn and voice, the painful pack; But skim, with wanton wing, the irriguous vale, Where winding streams, amid the flowery meads, Perpetual glide along, and undermine The cavern’d banks, by the tenacious roots Of hoary willows arch’d; gloomy retreat Of the bright scaly kind; where they, at will, On the green watery reed, their pasture, graze, [Sidenote: BOOK IV THE CHASE v. 357-381.] Suck the moist soil, or slumber at their ease, Rock’d by the restless brook, that draws aslope Its humid train, and laves their dark abodes. Where rages not oppression? where, alas, Is innocence secure? Rapine and spoil Haunt even the lowest deeps; seas have their sharks; Rivers and ponds inclose the ravenous pike; He, in his turn, becomes a prey; on him The amphibious otter feasts. Just is his fate, Deserved; but tyrants know no bounds: nor spears That bristle on his back, defend the perch From his wide greedy jaws; nor burnish’d mail The yellow carp; nor all his arts can save The insinuating eel, that hides his head Beneath the slimy mud; nor yet escapes The crimson-spotted trout, the river’s pride, And beauty of the stream. Without remorse, This midnight pillager, ranging around, Insatiate, swallows all. The owner mourns The unpeopled rivulet, and gladly hears The huntsman’s early call, and sees with joy The jovial crew, that march upon its banks In gay parade, with bearded lances arm’d. This subtle spoiler of the beaver kind, Far off perhaps, where ancient alders shade [Sidenote: BOOK IV THE CHASE v. 382-406.]