Or, downward driven, they bruise the tender vine, Or, tossed aloft, are knocked against a pine; And where of late the kids had cropped the grass, The monsters of the deep now take their place. Insulting Nereids on the cities ride, And wondering dolphins o'er the palace glide; On leaves, and masts of mighty oaks, they brouze; And their broad fins entangle in the boughs. The frighted wolf now swims among the sheep; The yellow lion wanders in the deep; His rapid force no longer helps the boar; The stag swims faster than he ran before.[22] The fowls, long beating on their wings in vain, Despair of land, and drop into the main. Now hills and vales no more distinction know, And levelled nature lies oppressed below. The most of mortals perish in the flood, The small remainder dies for want of food. A mountain of stupendous height there stands Betwixt the Athenian and Bæotian lands, The bound of fruitful fields, while fields they were, But then a field of waters did appear: Parnassus is its name, whose forky rise Mounts through the clouds, and mates the lofty skies. High on the summit of this dubious cliff, Deucalion wafting moored his little skiff. He with his wife were only left behind Of perished man; they two were human kind. The mountain-nymphs and Themis they adore, And from her oracles relief implore. The most upright of mortal men was he; The most sincere and holy woman, she. When Jupiter, surveying earth from high, Beheld it in a lake of water lie, That where so many millions lately lived, But two, the best of either sex, survived, He loosed the northern wind; fierce Boreas flies To puff away the clouds, and purge the skies; Serenely, while he blows, the vapours driven Discover heaven to earth, and earth to heaven. The billows fall, while Neptune lays his mace On the rough sea, and smooths its furrowed face. Already Triton, at his call, appears } Above the waves; a Tyrian robe he wears; } And in his hand a crooked trumpet bears. } The sovereign bids him peaceful sounds inspire, And give the waves the signal to retire. His writhen shell he takes, whose narrow vent Grows by degrees into a large extent; Then gives it breath; the blast, with doubling sound, Runs the wide circuit of the world around. The sun first heard it, in his early east, And met the rattling echoes in the west. The waters, listening to the trumpet's roar, Obey the summons, and forsake the shore. A thin circumference of land appears; And earth, but not at once, her visage rears, And peeps upon the seas from upper grounds: The streams, but just contained within their bounds, By slow degrees into their channels crawl, And earth increases as the waters fall.