eir neglected bed.
(31)What time she skims along the field with speed,
(32)She scorns the rider, and pursuing steed.
How rich the peacock!(33) 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 specious round displays,
And slowly moves amid the waving blaze.
Who taught the hawk to find, in seasons wise,
Perpetual summer, and a change of skies?
When clouds deform the year, she mounts the wind,
Shoots to the south, nor fears the storm behind;
The sun returning, she returns again,
Lives in his beams, and leaves ill days to men.
Tho' strong the hawk,(34) tho' practis'd well to fly,
An eagle drops her in a lower sky;
An eagle, when, deserting human sight,
She seeks the sun in her unwearied flight:
Did thy command her yellow pinion lift
So high in air, and set her on the clift,
Where far above thy world she dwells alone,
And proudly makes the strength of rocks her own;
(35)Thence wide o'er nature takes her dread survey,
And with a glance predestinates her prey?
She feasts her young with blood; and, hov'ring o'er
Th' unslaughter'd host, enjoys the promis'd gore.
(36)Know'st thou how many moons, by me assign'd,
Roll o'er the mountain goat, and forest hind,
While pregnant they a mother's load sustain?
They bend in anguish, and cast forth their pain.
Hale are their young, from human frailties freed;
Walk unsustain'd, and unassisted feed;
They live at once; forsake the dam's warm side;
Take the wide world, with nature for their guide;
Bound o'er the lawn, or seek the distant glade;
And find a home in each delightful shade.
Will the tall reem, which knows no lord but me,
Low at the crib, and ask an alms of thee;
Submit his unworn shoulder to the yoke,
Break the stiff clod, and o'er thy furrow smoke?
Since great his strength, go trust him, void of care;
Lay on his neck the toil of all the year;
Bid him bring home the seasons to thy doors,
And cast his load among thy gather'd stores.
Didst thou from service the wild ass discharge,
And break his bonds, and bid him live at large,
Through the wide 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 mountains spread;
As in pure air aloft he bounds along,