While backward from the hunter's eyes
The landscape like a torrent flies.
At last an antient wood they gain'd,
By pruner's ax yet unprofaned.

High o'er the rest, by Nature rear'd,
The oak's majestick boughs appear'd;
Beneath, a copse of various hue

In barbarous luxuriance grew.

No knife had curb'd the rambling sprays,
No hand had wove th' implicit maze.

The flowering thorn, self-taught to wind,
The hazle's stubborn stem intwined,
And bramble twigs were wreath'd around,
And rough furze crept along the ground.
Here sheltering, from the sons of murther,
The hares drag their tired limbs no further.
But lo, the western wind erelong

Was loud, and roar'd the woods among;
From rustling leaves, and crashing boughs,

The sound of wo and war arose.

The hares distracted scour the grove,

As terror and amazement drove;

But danger, whereso'er they fled,

Still seem'd impending o'er their head,
Now crouded in a grotto's gloom,

All hope extinct, they wait their doom.
Dire was the silence, till, at length,
Even from despair deriving strength,
With bloody eye, and furious look,
A daring youth arose, and spoke.

O wretched race, the scorn of Fate,

"Whom ills of every sort await!

"O, cursed with keenest sense to feel

"The sharpest sting of every

ill!

"Say ye, who, fraught with mighty scheme,

"Of liberty and vengeance dream,

"What now remains? To what recess

"Shall we our weary steps address,

"Since fate is evermore pursuing

"All ways, and means to work our ruin? "Are we alone, of all beneath,

"Condemn'd to misery worse than death! "Must we, with fruitless labour, strive

In misery worse than death to live!

No. Be the smaller ill our choice: So dictates Nature's powerful voice. "Death's pang will in a moment cease; "And then, All hail, eternal peace!" Thus while he spoke, his words impart The dire resolve to every heart.

A distant lake in prospect lay,
That glittering in the solar ray,
Gleam'd through the dusky trees, and shot
A trembling light along the grot.
Thither with one consent they bend,
Their sorrows with their lives to end,
While each, in thought, already hears
The water hissing in his ears.

Fast by the margin of the lake,
Conceal'd within a thorny brake,
A Linnet sate, whose careless lay
Amused the solitary day.
Careless he sung, for on his breast
Sorrow no lasting trace impress'd;
When suddenly he heard a sound

Of swift feet traversing the ground.

Quick to the neighbouring tree he flies,
Thence trembling casts around his eyes;
No foe appear'd, his fears were vain;
Pleased he renews the sprightly strain.

The hares, whose noise had caused his fright, Saw with surprise the linnet's flight.

Is there on earth a wretch, they said,

Whom our approach can strike with dread?
An instantaneous change of thought
To tumult every bosom wrought.
So fares the system-building sage,
Who, plodding on from youth to age,
At last on some foundation-dream
Has rear'd aloft his goodly scheme,
And proved his predecessors fools,
And bound all nature by his rules;
So fares he in that dreadful hour,
When injured Truth exerts her power,
Some new phenomenon to raise;
Which, bursting on his frighted gaze,
From its proud summit to the ground
Proves the whole edifice unsound.

"Children," thus spoke a hare sedate, Who oft had known th' extremes of fate,

"In slight events the docile mind

"May hints of good instruction find.

"That our condition is the worst,

"And we with such misfortunes cursed

"As all comparison defy,

"Was late the universal cry.

"When lo, an accident so slight

"As yonder little linnet's flight,

"Has made your stubborn heart confess "(So your amazement bids me guess)

"That all our load of woes and fears

"Is but a part of what he bears.

"Where can he rest secure from harms, "Whom even a helpless hare alarms?

"Yet he repines not at his lot,
"When past the danger is forgot:

"On yonder bough he trims his wings, "And with unusual rapture sings;

"While we, less wretched, sink beneath

“Our lighter ills, and rush to death.