With choicest viands heaps the liberal board, To crown our triumphs, and reward our toils. Here must the instructive Muse (but with respect) Censure that numerous pack, that crowd of state, With which the vain profusion of the great Covers the lawn, and shakes the trembling copse. _180 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 slily 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, foiled and lost. So when proud Eastern kings summon to arms Their gaudy legions, from far distant climes _190 They flock in crowds, unpeopling half a world: But when the day of battle calls them forth To charge the well-trained foe, a band compact Of chosen veterans; they press blindly on, In heaps confused, by their own weapons fall, A smoking carnage scattered o'er the plain. Nor hounds alone this noxious brood destroy: The plundered warrener full many a wile Devises to entrap his greedy foe, Fat with nocturnal spoils. At close of day, _200 With silence 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 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 failed, the captive fox Has shared the wounded joint, and with a limb _210 Compounded for his life. But if perchance In the deep pitfall plunged, there's no escape; But unreprieved he dies, and bleached 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 betrayed, Heedless of fate, within its gaping jaws Expires indignant. When the orient beam With blushes paints the dawn; and all the race _220 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 224 Climbs the high hills, whose proud aspiring tops, With the tall cedar crowned, 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 And avenue to death. Hither he calls _230 His watchful bands; and low into the ground A pit they sink, full many a fathom deep. Then in the midst a column high is reared, The butt of some fair tree; upon whose top A lamb is placed, just ravished from his dam. And next a wall they build, with stones and earth Encircling round, and hiding from all view The dreadful precipice.