His arms defcend, his fhoulders fink away,
To multiply his legs for chace of
grows a wolf, his hoariness remains, And the fame rage in other members reigns.
eyes still sparkle in a narr'wer space,
His jaws retain the grin, and violence of his face.
This was a single ruin, but not one
Deferves fo just a punishment alone.
Mankind's a monster, and th' ungodly times,
Confed'rate into guilt, are fworn to crimes.
All are alike involv'd in ill, and all,
Muft by the fame relentless fury fall.
Thus ended he; the greater Gods affent,
By clamors urging his fevere intent;
The lefs fill up the cry for punishment.
Yet ftill with pity they remember man;
And mourn as much as heav'nly spirits can.
They afk, when thofe were loft of human birth,
What he would do with all his waste of earth?
If his difpeopled world he would refign
To beafts, a mute, and more ignoble line?
Neglected altars must no longer smoke,
If none were left to worship and invoke.
To whom the father of the Gods reply'd:
Lay that unneceffary fear afide :
Mine be the care new people to provide.
I will from wondrous principles ordain
A race unlike the firft, and try my
Already had he tofs'd the flaming brand, And roll'd the thunder in his fpacious hand; Preparing to discharge on feas and land: But ftop'd, for fear thus violently driv❜n, The sparks fhould catch his axle-tree of heav'n. Remembring, in the Fates, a time, when fire Shou'd to the battlements of heav'n afpire, And all his blazing worlds above should burn, And all th' inferior globe to cinders turn. His dire artillery thus difmifs'd, he bent His thoughts to fome fecurer punishment: Concludes to pour a watry deluge down;
And, what he durft not burn, refolves to drown. The northern breath, that freezes floods he
With all the race of cloud-difpelling winds:
The South he loos'd, who night and horror brings;
And fogs are fhaken from his flaggy wings.
From his divided beard two ftreams he pours ;
His head and rheumy eyes diftil in fhow'rs.
With rain his robe and heavy mantle flow:
And lazy mists are lowring on his brow,
Still as he swept along, with his clench'd fift,
Hefqueez'd the clouds; th'imprifon'd clouds, refift:
The skies, from pole to pole, with peals refound;
And show'rs inlarg'd come pouring on the ground.
Then clad in colors of a various die,
Junonian Iris breeds a new fupply,
To feed the clouds: impetuous rain descends;
The bearded corn beneath the burthen bends:
Defrauded clowns deplore their perish'd grain;
And the long labors of the year are vain.
Nor from his patrimonial heav'n alone
Is Jove content to pour his vengeance
Aid from his brother of the feas he craves,
To help him with auxiliary waves.
The watry tyrant calls his brooks and floods,
Who roll from moffy caves, their moist abodes;
And with perpetual urns his palace fill:
To whom, in brief, he thus imparts his will.
Small exhortation needs; your pow'rs employ:
And this bad world (fo Jove requires) destroy.
Let loose the reins to all
your watry ftore:
Bear down the dams, and open ev'ry door.
The floods by nature enemies to land, And proudly swelling wilh their new command, Remove the living stones that stopp'd their way, And gufhing from their fource, augment the fea. Then, with his mace, their monarch ftruck the
With inward trembling earth receiv'd the wound;
And rifing streams a ready paffage found.
Th' expanded waters gather on the plain,
They float the fields, and overtop the grain;
Then rushing onwards, with a fweepy fway,
Bear flocks, and folds, and lab'ring hinds away.
Nor fafe their dwellings were; for, fap'd by floods,
Their houses fell upon their houfhold Gods.
The folid piles too strongly built to fall,
High o'er their heads behold a watry wall.
Now feas and earth were in confufion loft;
A world of waters, and without a coast.
One climbs a cliff; one in his boat is born, And ploughs above, where late he fow'd his corn. Others o'er chimney tops and turrets row,
And drop their anchors on the meads below:
Or downward driv'n, they bruise the tender vine,
Or tofs'd aloft, are knock'd against a pine.
And where of late the kids had cropp'd the grafs,
The monsters of the deep now take their place.
Infulting Nereids on the cities ride,
And wond'ring dolphins o'er the palace glide.
On leaves, and mafts of mighty oaks, they brouze;
And their broad fins entangle in the boughs.
The frighted wolf now fwims 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.
The fowls, long beating on their wings in vain,
Despair of land, and drop into the main.
Now hills and vales no more diftinction know,
And levell❜d nature lies opprefs'd 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 th' Athenian and Baotian lands,
The bound of fruitful fields, while fields they were, But then a field of waters did appear:
Parnaffus is its name; whofe forky rife
Mounts thro the clouds, and mates the lofty skies.
High on the fummit of this dubious cliff,
Deucalion wafting moor'd his little skiff.
He with his wife were only left behind
Of perifh'd man; they two were human kind.
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