,
When, now to cranes a prey, on talons hung,
High in the clouds they saw their helpless lord,
His wriggling form still lessening as he soared!
Lo! yet again, with unabated rage,
In mortal strife the mingling hosts engage.
The crane with darted bill assaults the foe,
Hovering; then wheels aloft to scape the blow:
The dwarf in anguish aims the vengeful wound;
But whirls in empty air the falchion round.
Such was the scene, when midst the loud alarms
Sublime the eternal Thunderer rose in arms;
When Briareus, by mad ambition driven,
Heaved Pelion huge, and hurled it high at heaven.
Jove rolled redoubling thunders from on high,
Mountains and bolts encountered in the sky;
Till one stupendous ruin whelmed the crew,
Their vast limbs weltering wide in brimstone blue.
But now at length the pygmy legions yield,
And, winged with terror, fly the fatal field.
They raise a weak and melancholy wail,
All in distraction scattering o'er the vale.
Prone on their routed rear the cranes descend;
Their bills bite furious, and their talons rend:
With unrelenting ire they urge the chace,
Sworn to exterminate the hated race.
'Twas thus the Pygmy Name, once great in war,
For spoils of conquered cranes renown'd afar,
Perished. For, by the dread decree of Heaven,
Short is the date to earthly grandeur given,
And vain are all attempts to roam beyond
Where Fate has fixed the everlasting bound.
Fallen are the trophies of Assyrian power,
And Persia's proud dominion is no more;
Yea, though to both superior far in fame,
Thine empire, Latium! is an empty name.
And now, with lofty chiefs of antient time,
The pygmy heroes roam the Elysian clime.
Or, if belief to matron-tales be due,
Full oft, in the belated shepherd's view,
Their frisking forms, in gentle green arrayed,
Gambol secure along the moonlight glade.
Secure, for no alarming cranes molest,
And all their woes in long oblivion rest;
Down the deep dale, and narrow winding way,
They foot it featly, ranged in ringlets gay:
'Tis joy and frolic all, where'er they rove,
And Fairy-people is the name they love.

EPISTLE
TO
THE HONOURABLE C. B.

PETERHEAD, 1766.