OW front to front the marching armies
Halt ere they meet, and form the length'ning line:
The chiefs confpicuous seen and heard afar,
Give the loud fignal to the rushing war; [found,
Their dreadful trumpets deep-mouth'd hornets
The founded charge remurmurs o'er the ground,
E'n Jove proclaims a field of horror nigh,
And rolls low thunder thro' the troubled sky.
First to the fight the large Hypfiboas flew,
And brave Lychenor with a javelin slew.
The luckless warrior fill'd with gen'rous flame,
Stood foremost glitt'ring in the post of fame;
When in his liver ftruck, the Javelin hung;
The Mouse fell thund'ring, and the target rung;
Prone to the ground, he finks his closing eye,
And foil'd in duft his lovely tresses lie.
A fpear at Pelion Troglodites caft,
The miffive fpear within the bofom past ;
Death's fable shades the fainting Frog furround,
And life's red tide runs ebbing from the wound.
Embasichytros felt Scutlæus' dart
Transfix, and quiver in his panting heart;
But great Artophagus aveng'd the flain,
And big Scutlæus tumbling loads the plain,
And Polyphonus dies, a Frog renown'd,
For boastful speech and turbulence of found,
Deep thro' the belly pierc'd, fupine he lay ;
And breath'd his foul against the face of day.
The ftrong Lymnocharis, who view'd with ire,
A victor triumph, and a friend expire;
And fiercely flung where Troglodites fought;
With heaving arms a rocky fragment caught,
(A warrior vers'd in arts, of fure retreat,
But arts in vain elude impending fate;)
Full on his finewy neck the fragment fell,
And o'er his eye-lids clouds eternal dwell.
Lychenor (fecond of the glorious name)
Striding advanc'd, and took no wand'ring aim
Thro' all the Frog the shining jav❜lin flies,
And near the vanquish'd Moufe the victor dies..
The dreadful ftroke Crambophagus affrights,
Long bred to banquets, lefs inur'd to fights,
Heedlefs he runs, and stumbles o'er the steep,
And wildly flound'ring flashes up the deep;
Lychenor following with a downward blow,
Reach'd in the lake his unrecover'd foe ;
Gafping he rolls, a purple stream of blood
Diftains the furface of the filver flood;
Thro' the wide wound the rushing entrails throng,
And flow the breathlefs carcafs floats along.
Lymnifius good Tyroglyphus affails,
Prince of the Mice that haunt the flow'ry vales, Loft to the milky fares and rural seat,
He came to perish on the bank of fate.
The dread Pternoglyphus demands the fight, Which tender Calaminthius fhuns by flight,
Drops the green target, fpringing quits the foe,
Glides thro' the lake, and fafely dives below.
But dire Pternophagus divides his way
Thro' breaking ranks, and leads the dreadful day.
No nibbling prince excell'd in fierceness more,
His parents fed him on the favage boar;
But where his lance the field with blood imbru'd,
Swift as he mov'd, Hydrocharis purfu'd.
'Till fall'n in death he lies, a fhatt'ring ftone
Sounds on the neck, and crushes all the bone,
His blood pollutes the verdure of the plain,
And from his noftrils bursts the gushing brain.
Lychopinax with Borbocætes fights,
A blameless Frog, whom humbler life delights;
The fatal jav'lin unrelenting flies,
And darkness feals the gentle croaker's eyes.
Incens'd Praffophagus with spritely bound,
Bears Cniffiodortes off the rifing ground,
Then drags him o'er the lake depriv'd of breath,
And downward plunging, finks his foul to death.
But now the great Pfycarpax fhines afar,
(Scarce he fo great whose loss provok'd the war) Swift to revenge his fatal jav'lin fled,
And thro' the liver ftruck Pelufius dead;
His freckled corps before the victor fell,
His foul indignant fought the fhades of hell.
This faw Pelobates, and from the flood
Heav'd with both hands a monft'rous mass of mud,
The cloud obfcene o'er all the heroe flies,
Difhonours his brown face, and blots his eyes.
Enrag'd, and wildly fputt'ring, from the shore
A ftone immense of size the warrior bore,
A load for lab'ring earth, whose bulk to raise,
Asks ten degen'rate Mice of modern days.
Full on the leg arrives the crushing wound;
The Frog fupportless, writhes upon the ground.
Thus flufh'd, the victor wars with matchlefs force,
"Till loud Craugafides arrests his course,
Hoarse-croaking threats precede! with fatal speed
Deep thro' the belly run the pointed reed,
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