Spire above spire upreared in air he stood,

And gazing round him, overlooked the wood:
Then floating on the ground, in circles rolled;
Then leaped upon them in a mighty fold.
Of such a bulk, and such a monstrous size,
The serpent in the polar circle lies,

That stretches over half the northern skies.
In vain the Tyrians on their arms rely,
In vain attempt to fight, in vain to fly:
All their endeavours and their hopes are vain;
Some die entangled in the winding train;
Some are devoured; or feel a loathsome death,
Swoln up with blasts of pestilential breath.

And now the scorching sun was mounted high,
In all its lustre, to the noonday sky;

When, anxious for his friends, and filled with cares,
To search the woods the impatient chief prepares.
A lion's hide around his loins he wore,

The well-poised javelin to the field he bore,
Inured to blood, the far-destroying dart,
And, the best weapon, an undaunted heart.
Soon as the youth approached the fatal place,
He saw his servants breathless on the grass;
The scaly foe amid their corps he viewed,
Basking at ease, and feasting in their blood,
'Such friends,' he cries, 'deserved a longer date;
But Cadmus will revenge, or share their fate.'
Then heaved a stone, and rising to the throw
He sent it in a whirlwind at the foe:
A tower, assaulted by so rude a stroke,
With all its lofty battlements had shook;
But nothing here the unwieldy rock avails,
Rebounding harmless from the plaited scales,
That, firmly joined, preserved him from a wound,

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With native armour crusted all around.
The pointed javelin more successful flew,
Which at his back the raging warrior threw;
Amid the plaited scales it took its course,
And in the spinal marrow spent its force.
The monster hissed aloud, and raged in vain,
And writhed his body to and fro with pain;
And bit the spear, and wrenched the wood away;
The point still buried in the marrow lay.
And now his rage, increasing with his pain,
Reddens his eyes, and beats in every vein;
Churned in his teeth the foamy venom rose,
Whilst from his mouth a blast of vapours flows,
Such as the infernal Stygian waters cast;
The plants around him wither in the blast.
Now in a maze of rings he lies enrolled,
Now all unravelled, and without a fold;
Now, like a torrent, with a mighty force,
Bears down the forest in his boisterous course.
Cadmus gave back, and on the lion's spoil
Sustained the shock, then forced him to recoil;
The pointed javelin warded off his rage:
Mad with his pains, and furious to engage,

The serpent champs the steel, and bites the spear, 120
Till blood and venom all the point besmear.
But still the hurt he yet received was slight;
For, whilst the champion with redoubled might
Strikes home the javelin, his retiring foe
Shrinks from the wound, and disappoints the
blow.

The dauntless hero still pursues his stroke,
And presses forward, till a knotty oak
Retards his foe, and stops him in the rear;
Full in his throat he plunged the fatal spear,

That in the extended neck a passage found,

And pierced the solid timber through the wound.
Fixed to the reeling trunk, with many a stroke
Of his huge tail, he lashed the sturdy oak;
Till spent with toil, and labouring hard for breath,
He now lay twisting in the pangs of death.

Cadmus beheld him wallow in a flood

Of swimming poison, intermixed with blood;
When suddenly a speech was heard from high,
(The speech was heard, nor was the speaker nigh,)
Why dost thou thus with secret pleasure see,
Insulting man! what thou thyself shalt be?'
Astonished at the voice, he stood amazed,
And all around with inward horror gazed:
When Pallas, swift descending from the skies,
Pallas, the guardian of the bold and wise,
Bids him plough up the field, and scatter round
The dragon's teeth o'er all the furrowed ground;
Then tells the youth how to his wondering eyes
Embattled armies from the field should rise.

He sows the teeth at Pallas's command,
And flings the future people from his hand.
The clods grow warm, and crumble where he sows;
And now the pointed spears advance in rows;
Now nodding plumes appear, and shining crests,
Now the broad shoulders and the rising breasts;
O'er all the field the breathing harvest swarms,
A growing host, a crop of men and arms.

So through the parting stage a figure rears
Its body up, and limb by limb appears
By just degrees; till all the man arise,
And in his full proportion strikes the eyes.
Cadmus surprised, and startled at the sight
Of his new foes, prepared himself for fight:

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When one cried out, 'Forbear, fond man, forbear 164

To mingle in a blind, promiscuous war.'

This said, he struck his brother to the ground,
Himself expiring by another's wound;
Nor did the third his conquest long survive,
Dying ere scarce he had begun to live.

The dire example ran through all the field,
Till heaps of brothers were by brothers killed;
The furrows swam in blood: and only five
Of all the vast increase were left alive.
Echion one, at Pallas's command,

Let fall the guiltless weapon from his hand;
And with the rest a peaceful treaty makes,
Whom Cadmus as his friends and partners
takes:

So founds a city on the promised earth,

And gives his new Boeotian empire birth.

Here Cadmus reigned; and now one would have

guessed

The royal founder in his exile blessed:
Long did he live within his new abodes,
Allied by marriage to the deathless gods;
And, in a fruitful wife's embraces old,
A long increase of children's children told:
But no frail man, however great or high,
Can be concluded blessed before he die.
Acteon was the first of all his race,
Who grieved his grandsire in his borrowed face;
Condemned by stern Diana to bemoan
The branching horns, and visage not his own;
To shun his once-loved dogs, to bound away,
And from their huntsman to become their prey.
And yet consider why the change was wrought,
You'll find it his misfortune, not his fault;

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Or if a fault, it was the fault of chance:

For how can guilt proceed from ignorance?

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THE TRANSFORMATION OF ACTEON INTO A STAG.

In a fair chase a shady mountain stood,

Well stored with game, and marked with trails of blood.
Here did the huntsmen till the heat of day

Pursue the stag, and load themselves with prey;
When thus Acteon calling to the rest:

'My friends,' says he, 'our sport is at the best.
The sun is high advanced, and downward sheds
His burning beams directly on our heads;
Then by consent abstain from further spoils,
Call off the dogs, and gather up the toils;
And ere to-morrow's sun begins his race,
Take the cool morning to renew the chase.'
They all consent, and in a cheerful train
The jolly huntsmen, loaden with the slain,
Return in triumph from the sultry plain.

Down in a vale with pine and cypress clad,
Refreshed with gentle winds, and brown with shade,
The chaste Diana's private haunt, there stood
Full in the centre of the darksome wood
A spacious grotto, all around o'ergrown
With hoary moss, and arched with pumice-stone.
From out its rocky clefts the waters flow,
And trickling swell into a lake below.
Nature had everywhere so played her part,
That everywhere she seemed to vie with art.

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Here the bright goddess, toiled and chafed with heat, Was wont to bathe her in the cool retreat.

Here did she now with all her train resort,

Panting with heat, and breathless from the sport;