Or the black poison stained the sandy floor. The thriven calves in meads their food forsake, And render their sweet souls before the plenteous rack. The fawning dog runs mad; the wheezing swine With coughs is choked, and labours from the chine: The victor horse, forgetful of his food, The palm renounces, and abhors the flood. He paws the ground; and on his hanging ears } A doubtful sweat in clammy drops appears: } Parched is his hide, and rugged are his hairs. } Such are the symptoms of the young disease; But, in time's process, when his pains increase, He rolls his mournful eyes; he deeply groans With patient sobbing, and with manly moans. He heaves for breath; which, from his lungs supplied, And fetched from far, distends his labouring side. To his rough palate his dry tongue succeeds; And ropy gore he from his nostrils bleeds. A drench of wine has with success been used, And through a horn the generous juice infused, Which, timely taken, op'd his closing jaws, But, if too late, the patient's death did cause: For the too vigorous dose too fiercely wrought, And added fury to the strength it brought. Recruited into rage, he grinds his teeth In his own flesh, and feeds approaching death. Ye gods, to better fate good men dispose, And turn that impious error on our foes! The steer, who to the yoke was bred to bow, (Studious of tillage, and the crooked plough,) Falls down and dies; and, dying, spews a flood Of foamy madness, mixed with clotted blood. The clown, who, cursing Providence, repines, His mournful fellow from the team disjoins; With many a groan forsakes his fruitless care, And in the unfinished furrow leaves the share. The pining steer, no shades of lofty woods, Nor flowery meads, can ease, nor crystal floods Rolled from the rock: his flabby flanks decrease; His eyes are settled in a stupid peace; His bulk too weighty for his thighs is grown, And his unwieldy neck hangs drooping down. Now what avails his well-deserving toil To turn the glebe, or smooth the rugged soil? And yet he never supped in solemn state, (Nor undigested feasts did urge his fate,) Nor day to night luxuriously did join, Nor surfeited on rich Campanian wine. Simple his beverage, homely was his food, The wholesome herbage, and the running flood: No dreadful dreams awaked him with affright; His pains by day secured his rest by night. 'Twas then that buffaloes, ill paired, were seen To draw the car of Jove's imperial queen, For want of oxen; and the labouring swain } Scratched, with a rake, a furrow for his grain, } And covered with his hand the shallow seed again. } He yokes himself, and up the hilly height, With his own shoulders, draws the waggon's weight. The nightly wolf, that round the enclosure prowled To leap the fence, now plots not on the fold,