So strong the heat, so strong the torments were, They like some mighty burden bear The lightest covering of Air. All Sexes and all Ages do invade The bounds which Nature laid, The Laws of modesty which Nature made. The Virgins blush not, yet uncloath’d appear, Undress’d do run about, yet never fear. The pain and the disease did now Unwillingly reduce men to That nakedness once more, Which perfect health and innocence caus’d before. No sleep, no peace, no rest, Their wandring and affrighted minds possest; Upon their souls and eyes, Hell and Eternal horrour lies, Unusual shapes, and images, Dark pictures, and resemblances Of things to come, and of the World below, O’re their distemper’d fancies goe: Sometimes they curse, sometimes they pray unto The Gods above, the Gods beneath; Sometimes they cruelties, and fury breath, Not sleep, but waking now was sister unto death. XVIII. Scattred in Fields the Bodies lay, The earth call’d to the Fowls to take their Flesh away. In vain she call’d, they come not nigh, Nor would their food with their own ruine buy, But at full meals, they hunger, pine, and die. The Vulters afar off did see the feast, Rejoyc’d, and call’d their friends to taste, They rallied up their troops in haste, Along came mighty droves, Forsook their young ones, and their groves, Each one his native mountain and his nest; They come, but all their carcases abhor, And now avoid the dead men more Than weaker birds did living men before. But if some bolder fowls the flesh essay, They were destroy’d by their own prey. The Dog no longer bark’t at coming guest, Repents its being a domestick Beast, Did to the woods and mountains haste: The very Owls at _Athens_ are But seldome seen and rare, The Owls depart in open day, Rather than in infected Ivy more to stay. XIX.