And order to confusion turns embroiled. Now the distended vessels scarce contain The wild uproar, but press each weaker part, _320 Unable to resist: the tender brain And stomach suffer most; convulsions shake His trembling nerves, and wandering pungent pains Pinch sore the sleepless wretch; his fluttering pulse Oft intermits; pensive, and sad, he mourns His cruel fate, and to his weeping friends Laments in vain; to hasty anger prone, Resents each slight offence, walks with quick step, And wildly stares; at last with boundless sway The tyrant frenzy reigns. For as the dog _330 (Whose fatal bite conveyed the infectious bane) 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 grunting through the groves. Dreadful example to a wicked world! See there distressed he lies! parched up with thirst, _340 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 _350 Perpetual glide along; and undermine The caverned banks, by the tenacious roots Of hoary willows arched; gloomy retreat Of the bright scaly kind; where they at will, On the green watery reed their pasture graze, Suck the moist soil, or slumber at their ease, Rocked 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 _360 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 burnished mail The yellow carp; nor all his arts can save The insinuating eel, that hides his head Beneath the slimy mud; nor yet escapes _370 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 armed. This subtle spoiler of the beaver kind, Far off, perhaps, where ancient alders shade The deep still pool; within some hollow trunk _380