carnage marked his course!
How oft, O Strymon, thy lone banks along,
Did wailing Echo waft the funeral song!
And now from far the mingling clamours rise,
Loud and more loud rebounding through the skies.
From skirt to skirt of heaven, with stormy sway,
A cloud rolls on, and darkens all the day.
Near and more near descends the dreadful shade,
And now in battleous array displayed,
On sounding wings, and screaming in their ire,
The cranes rush onward, and the fight require.
The pygmy warriors eye, with fearless glare,
The host thick swarming o'er the burthened air:
Thick swarming now, but to their native land
Doomed to return a scanty, straggling band.--
When sudden, darting down the depth of heaven,
Fierce on the expecting foe the cranes are driven.
The kindling phrensy every bosom warms,
The region echoes to the crash of arms:
Loose feathers from the encountering armies fly,
And in careering whirlwinds mount the sky.
To breathe from toil upsprings the panting crane,
Then with fresh vigour downward darts again.
Success in equal balance hovering hangs.
Here, on the sharp spear, mad with mortal pangs,
The bird transfixed in bloody vortex whirls,
Yet fierce in death the threatening talon curls;
There, while the life-blood bubbles from his wound,
With little feet the pygmy beats the ground;
Deep from his breast the short, short sob he draws,
And, dying, curses the keen-pointed claws.
Trembles the thundering field, thick covered o'er
With falchions, mangled wings, and streaming gore,
And pygmy arms, and beaks of ample size;
And here a claw, and there a finger lies.
Encompassed round with heaps of slaughtered foes,
All grim in blood the pygmy champion glows;
And on the assailing host impetuous springs,
Careless of nibbling bills, and flapping wings;
And midst the tumult wheresoe'er he turns,
The battle with redoubled fury burns.
From every side the avenging cranes, amain,
Throng, to o'erwhelm this terror of the plain.
When suddenly (for such the will of Jove)
A fowl enormous, sousing from above,
The gallant chieftain clutched, and, soaring high,
(Sad chance of battle!) bore him up the sky.
The cranes pursue, and, clustering in a ring,
Chatter triumphant round the captive king.
But, ah! what pangs each pygmy bosom wrung