Page:Virgil - The Georgics, Thomas Nevile, 1767.djvu/35

 Book I. Nor with their snouts the swine about them throw

The loosen'd dunghill: but mists creeping low

Rest on the plain; and from some turret's height,

With weak eyes watching the departing light

In vain, the bird of night plies her late lay:

Aloft soars Nisus in th' aerial way;

For the bright lock just vengeance Scylla feels;

Where'er her flight with rapid wings she wheels,

In the same track her fierce avenger nigh

Nisus with whirring pinions beats the sky;

And where sublime in air he mounting springs,

Strait her swift flight she speeds with rapid wings.

Now do the ravens press their lengthen'd throats,

And at short intervals pour liquid notes;

And fluttering with a strange and new delight,

Oft fondly rustle in the leafy height,

Glad, when the storm is past, again to see

Their downy nests, and puny progeny.

Not that to birds, I trust, by Fate or Heav'n

A subtler mind, or prescience has been giv'n;

But when new properties in Ether rise,

Bred by the storm and fluctuating skies;

And, moisten'd by bleak Auster's blasts, the air

The thin condenses, or the dense makes rare; Their