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114

The Echo.-The Florist.

Who stretch'd behind her, pants upon the plain,
Past power to kill, as she to get away;
With his loll'd tongue he faintly licks his prey.;
His warm breath blows her fur up as she lies;
She trembling creeps upon the ground away,
And looks back on him with beseeching eyes

DRYDEN.

ECHO.

As o'er the hollow vaults we walk,
A hundred echoes round us talk,
From hill to hill the voice is tost:
Rocks rebounding,

Caves resounding,
Not a single word is lost.

THE FLORIST.

THE florist, when the winter's rage is o'er, When the frosts, and snows, and tempests

are no more,

To the kind soil commits the future flower:

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Now genial heats unbind the teeming root,
Swell it with life, and make the fibres shoot:
He sees the rising vegetable rear

The tender stalk, and trust itself in air:
Now western gales breathe thro' the vernal sky,
Unfold the bud, and show its various dye :
Secure he views his labour with delight;
When, unexpected, in one piercing night
His promis'd joys are crush'd by a disastrous
blight.

B. JONSON.

THE OSTRICH.

WHO in the stupid ostrich has subdued
A parent's care, and fond inquietude?
While far she flies, her scatter'd eggs are found,
Without an owner, on the sandy ground;
Cast out on fortune, they at mercy lie,
And borrow life from an indulgent sky:
Adopted by the sun in blaze of day
They ripen under his prolific ray.

116

The Peacock.-The Wild Ass.

Unmindful she, that some unhappy tread May crush her young in their neglected bed, What time she skims along the field with speed, And scorns the rider and pursuing steed.

YOUNG.

THE PEACOCK.

How rich the peacock! what bright glories run From plume to plume, and vary in the sun! He proudly spreads them to the golden ray, Gives all his colours, and adorns the day; With conscious state, the spacious round displays, And slowly moves amid the waving blaze.

YOUNG.

THE WILD ASS.

DID man from service the wild ass discharge,
And break his bonds, and bid him live at large;
Thro' the wild waste, his ample mansion, roam,
And lose himself in his unbounded home?
By Nature's hand magnificently, fed,

His meal is on the range of mountain's spread;
As in pure air aloft he bounds along,

He sees in distant smoke the city throng;

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Conscious of freedom, scorns the smother'd train, The threat'ning driver, and the servile rein.

YOUNG.

THE LION.

FIERCEST of all, the lordly lion stalks,
Grimly majestic in his lonely walks ;
When round he glares, all living creatures fly;
He clears the desert with his rolling eye.
Say, mortal, does he rouse at thy command,
And roar to thee, and live upon thy hand?
Dost thou for him in forests bend thy bow,
And to his gloomy den the morsel throw,
Where bent on death lie hid his tawny brood,
And couch'd in dreadful ambush pant for blood,
Or, stretch'd on broken limbs, consume the day
In darkness wrapt, and slumber o'er their prey?
By the pale moon they take their destin'd round,
And lash their sides, and furious tear the ground.
Now shrieks and dying groans the desert fill;
They rage, they rend; their rav'nous jaws distil

118

The Hippopotamus.

With crimson foam; and when the banquet's o'er, They stride away and print their steps with gore: In flight alone the shepherd puts his trust, And shudders at the talon in the dust.

YOUNG.

THE HIPPOPOTAMUS.

MILD is the Behemoth,* tho' large his frame,
Smooth is his temper and represt his flame
While unprovok'd. This native of the flood
Lifts his broad foot, and puts ashore for food;
Earth sinks beneath him as he moves along
To seek the herbs, and mingle with the throng.
The uplands feed him: there the beasts admire
The mighty stranger, and in dread retire;
At length his greatness nearer they survey,
Graze in his shadow, and his eye obey.
The fens and marshes are his cool retreat,
His noon-tide shelter from the burning heat;
Their sedgy bosoms his wide couch are made,
And groves of willows give him all their shade.

*The Scripture name for the Hippopotamus.

YOUNG.

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