Of flying hares, and chase the fallow deer, Rouze from their desert dens the bristled rage Of boars, and beamy stags in toils engage. With smoke of burning cedar scent thy walls, And fume with stinking galbanum thy stalls, With that rank odour from thy dwelling-place To drive the viper's brood, and all the venomed race: For often, under stalls unmoved, they lie, Obscure in shades, and shunning heaven's broad eye: And snakes, familiar, to the hearth succeed, Disclose their eggs, and near the chimney breed-- Whether to roofy houses they repair, Or sun themselves abroad in open air, In all abodes, of pestilential kind To sheep and oxen, and the painful hind. Take, shepherd, take a plant of stubborn oak, And labour him with many a sturdy stroke, Or with hard stones demolish from afar His haughty crest, the seat of all the war; Invade his hissing throat, and winding spires; Till, stretched in length, the unfolded foe retires. He drags his tail, and for his head provides, } And in some secret cranny slowly glides; } But leaves exposed to blows his back and battered sides. } In fair Calabria's woods a snake is bred, With curling crest, and with advancing head: Waving he rolls, and makes a winding track; His belly spotted, burnished is his back. While springs are broken, while the southern air And dropping heavens the moistened earth repair, He lives on standing lakes and trembling bogs, And fills his maw with fish, or with loquacious frogs: But when, in muddy pools, the water sinks, And the chapt earth is furrowed o'er with chinks, He leaves the fens, and leaps upon the ground, And, hissing, rolls his glaring eyes around. With thirst inflamed, impatient of the heats, He rages in the fields, and wide destruction threats. Oh! let not sleep my closing eyes invade In open plains, or in the secret shade, When he, renewed in all the speckled pride Of pompous youth, has cast his slough aside, And in his summer livery rolls along, } Erect, and brandishing his forky tongue, } Leaving his nest, and his imperfect young, } And thoughtless of his eggs, forgets to rear The hopes of poison for the following year. The causes and the signs shall next be told, Of every sickness that infects the fold. A scabby tetter on their pelts will stick, When the raw rain has pierced them to the quick, Or searching frosts have eaten through the skin, Or burning icicles are lodged within; Or, when the fleece is shorn, if sweat remains Unwashed, and soaks into their empty veins; When their defenceless limbs the brambles tear, Short of their wool, and naked from the shear. Good shepherds, after shearing, drench their sheep: } And their flock's father (forced from high to leap) } Swims down the stream, and plunges in the deep. }