His mantle, now his hide, with rugged hairs
Cleaves to his back; a famifh'd face he bears;
His arms defcend, his fhoulders fink away,
To multiply his legs for chace of prey.
He grows a wolf, his hoarinefs remains,
And the fame rage in other members reigns.
His eyes ftill fparkle in a narr’wer space,
His jaws retain the grin, and violence of his face.
This was a fingle ruin, but not one
Deferves fo juft a punishment alone.
Mankind's a monfter, and th' ungodly times,
Confed'rate into guilt, are sworn to crimes.
All are alike involv'd in ill, and all,
Muft by the fame relentlefs fury fall.
Thus ended he; the greater Gods affent,
By clamours 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 ask, when those were loft of human birth,
What he would do with all his waste of earth?
If his difpeopled world he would refign
To beasts, 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 skill again.
Already had he tofs'd the flaming brand,
And roll'd the thunder in his fpacious hand;
Preparing to difcharge on feas and land:
But ftop'd, for fear thus violently driv'n,
The fparks fhould catch his axle-tree of heav'n.
U 3

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}

Remembring,

Remembring, in the Fates, a time, when fire
Shou'd to the battlements of heav'n aspire,
And all his blazing worlds above fhould 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 binds;
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 mifts are low'ring on his brow,
Still as he fwept along, with his clench'd fift,
He squeez'd the clouds; th' imprifon'd clouds, refift:
The fkies, from pole to pole, with peals refound;
And how'rs inlarg'd come pouring on the ground.
Then clad in colours of a various die,
Junonian Iris breeds a new fupply,

To feed the clouds: impetuous rain defcends;
The bearded corn beneath the burden bends:
Defrauded clowns deplore their perifh'd grain;
And the long labours of the year are vain.
Nor from his patrimonial heav'n alone
Is Jove content to pour his vengeance down:
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 Joye requires) deftroy.

2

Let

Let loose the reins to all your watry store:
Bear down the dams, and open ev'ry door.
The foods by nature enemies to land,
And proudly fwelling with their new command,
Remove the living ftones that stopp'd their way,
And gufhing from their fource, augment the fea.
Then, with his mace, their monarch ftruck the ground:
With inward trembling earth receiv'd the wound:
And rifing ftreams 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 houfes 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 coaft,

One climbs a cliff; one in his boat is borne.
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 grass,
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 ftag fwims fafter than he ran before.

U 4

The

The fowls, long beating on their wings in vain,
Defpair 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 ftupendous 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 fkies,
High on the fummit of this dubious cliff,
Deucalion wafting moor'd his little fkiff.
He with his wife were only left behind
Of perish'd 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 moft fincere and holy woman, fhe.

When Jupiter, furveying earth from high,
Beheld it in a lake of water lie,

That, where so many millions lately liv'd,
But two, the beft of either fex, furviv'd,
He loos'd the northern wind; fierce Boreas flies
To puff away the clouds, and purge the fkies:
Serenely, while he blows, the vapours driv'n
Discover heav'n to earth, and earth to heav'n.
The billows fall, while Neptune lays his mace
On the rough fea, and fmooths its furrow'd face.
Already Triton, at his call, appears

Above the waves; a Tyrian robe he wears;
And in his hand a crooked trumpet bears.
The fov'reign bids him peaceful founds infpire,
And give the waves the fignal 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 found,
Runs the wide circuit of the world around.

The fun first heard it, in his early East,
And met the rattling echos in the West.
The waters, lift'ning to the trumpet's roar,
Obey the fummons, and forfake the fhore.
A thin circumference of land appears;
And earth, but not at once, her visage rears,
And peeps upon the feas from upper grounds:
The streams, but just contain'd within their bounds,
By flow degrees into their channels crawl;

And earth increases as the waters fall.
In longer time the tops of trees appear,

Which mud on their difhonour'd branches bear.
At length the world was all restor❜d to view,
But defolate, and of a fickly hue:
Nature beheld herself, and ftood aghast,
A difmal defert, and a filent waste.

Which when Deucalion, with a piteous look,
Beheld, he wept, and thus to Pyrrha spoke :
Oh wife, oh fifter, oh of all thy kind
The best and only creature left behind,
By kindred, love, and now by dangers join'd;
Of multitudes, who breath'd the common air,
We two remain; a species in a pair :

The reft the feas have fwallow'd; nor have we
E'en of this wretched life a certainty.

The clouds are still above; and, while I speak,
A fecond deluge o'er our heads may break.
Should I be fnatch'd from hence, and thou remain,
Without relief, or partner of thy pain,

How coud'st thou fuch a wretched life fuftain?
Should I be left, and thou be loft, the fea,
That bury'd her I lov'd, fhou'd bury me.

}