BOOK III THE CHASE v. 181-204.
Pompous incumbrance! a magnificence
Useless, vexatious! for the wily fox,
Safe in the increasing number of his foes,
Kens well the great advantage: slinks behind,
And slyly creeps through the same beaten track,
And hunts them step by step; then views, escaped,
With inward ecstasy, the panting throng
In their own footsteps puzzled, foil’d, and lost.
So, when proud Eastern kings summon to arms
Their gaudy legions, from far distant climes
They flock in crowds, unpeopling half a world;
But when the day of battle calls them forth,
To charge the well-train’d foe, a band compact
Of chosen veterans, they press blindly on,
In heaps confused, by their own weapons fall,
A smoking carnage scatter’d o’er the plain.
Nor hounds alone this noxious brood destroy:
The plunder’d warrener full many a wile
Devises, to entrap his greedy foe,
Fat with nocturnal spoils. At close of day,
He silent drags his trail; then from the ground
Pares thin the close-grazed turf; there, with nice hand,
Covers the latent death, with curious springs
Prepared to fly at once, whene’er the tread
BOOK III THE CHASE v. 205-229.
Of man or beast, unwarily shall press
The yielding surface: by the indented steel
With gripe tenacious held, the felon grins,
And struggles, but in vain: yet oft, ’tis known,
When every art has fail’d, the captive fox
Has shared the wounded joint, and, with a limb,
Compounded for his life. But if, perchance,
In the deep pitfall plunged, there’s no escape;
But unreprieved he dies, and, bleach’d in air,
The jest of clowns, his reeking carcase hangs.
Of these are various kinds; not even the king
Of brutes evades this deep devouring grave;
But, by the wily African betray’d,
Heedless of fate, within its gaping jaws
Expires, indignant. When the orient beam
With blushes paints the dawn, and all the race
Carnivorous, with blood full-gorged, retire
Into their darksome cells, there, satiate, snore
O’er dripping offals, and the mangled limbs
Of men and beasts, the painful forester
Climbs the high hills, whose proud aspiring tops,
With the tall cedar crown’d, and taper fir,
Assail the clouds; there, ’mong the craggy rocks,
And thickets intricate, trembling, he views
His footsteps in the sand, the dismal road
BOOK III THE CHASE v. 230-254.
And avenue to death. Hither he calls
His watchful bands, and, low into the ground,
A pit they sink, full many a fathom deep:
Then, in the midst, a column high is rear’d,
The butt of some fair tree; upon whose top
A lamb is placed, just ravish’d from his dam;
And next, a wall they build, with stones and earth
Encircling round, and hiding from all view
The dreadful precipice. Now, when the shades
Of night hang lowering o’er the mountains brow,
And hunger keen, and pungent thirst of blood,
Rouze up the slothful beast, he shakes his sides,
Slow-rising from his lair, and stretches wide
His ravenous paws, with recent gore distain’d;
The forests tremble as he roars aloud,
Impatient to destroy. O’erjoy’d, he hears
The bleating innocent, that claims, in vain,
The shepherd’s care, and seeks, with piteous moan,
The foodful teat; himself, alas! design’d
Another’s meal. For now the greedy brute
Winds him from far; and, leaping o’er the mound,
To seize his trembling prey, headlong is plunged
Into the deep abyss. Prostrate he lies,
Astunn’d, and impotent. Ah! what avail
Thine eye-balls flashing fire, thy length of tail
BOOK III THE CHASE v. 255-279.
That lashes thy broad sides, thy jaws besmear’d
With blood, and offals crude, thy shaggy mane,
The terrour of the woods, thy stately port,
And bulk enormous, since, by stratagem,
Thy strength is foil’d? Unequal is the strife,
When sovereign reason combats brutal rage.
On distant Ethiopia’s sun-burnt coasts,
The black inhabitants a pitfall frame,
But of a different kind, and different use:
With slender poles the wide capacious mouth,
And hurdles slight, they close; o’er these is spread
A floor of verdant turf, with all its flowers
Smiling delusive, and from strictest search
Concealing the deep grave that yawns below:
Then boughs of trees they cut, with tempting fruit,
Of various kinds, surcharged; the downy peach,
The clustering vine, and, of bright golden rind,
The fragrant orange. Soon as evening gray
Advances slow, besprinkling all around,
With kind refreshing dews, the thirsty glebe,
The stately elephant, from the close shade,
With step majestic, strides, eager to taste
The cooler breeze, that from the sea-beat shore
Delightful breathes, or, in the limpid stream,
To lave his panting sides; joyous he scents
BOOK III THE CHASE v. 280-304.
The rich repast, unweeting of the death
That lurks within. And soon he, sporting, breaks
The brittle boughs, and greedily devours
The fruit delicious: ah! too dearly bought;
The price is life: for now the treacherous turf,
Trembling, gives way; and the unwieldy beast,
Self-sinking, drops into the dark profound.
So when dilated vapours, struggling, heave
The incumbent earth, if, chance, the cavern’d ground,
Shrinking, subside, and the thin surface yield,
Down sinks, at once, the ponderous dome, ingulf’d,
With all its towers. Subtle, delusive man,
How various are thy wiles! artful to kill
Thy savage foes, a dull unthinking race.
Fierce, from his lair, springs forth the speckled pard,
Thirsting for blood, and eager to destroy;
The huntsman flies, but to his flight alone
Confides not: at convenient distance fix’d,
A polish’d mirror stops, in full career,
The furious brute: he there his image views;
Spots against spots, with rage improving, glow;
Another pard his bristly whiskers curls,
Grins as he grins, fierce-menacing, and wide
Distends his opening paws; himself against
Himself opposed, and with dread vengeance arm’d.