Page:The Poetical Works of Thomas Parnell (1833).djvu/188

Embasichytros felt Seutlæus' dart
Transfix and quiver in his panting heart;
But great Artophagus aveng'd the slain,
And big Seutlæus tumbling loads the plain,
And Polyphonus dies, a frog renown'd
For boastful speech and turbulence of sound;
Deep through the belly pierc'd, supine he lay,
And breath'd his soul against the face of day.

The strong Lymnocharis, who view'd with ire
A victor triumph, and a friend expire;
With heaving arms a rocky fragment caught,
And fiercely flung where Troglodytes fought;
A warrior vers'd in arts, of sure retreat,
But arts in vain elude impending fate;
Full on his sinewy neck the fragment fell,
And o'er his eyelids clouds eternal dwell.
Lychenor, second of the glorious name,
Striding advanced, and took no wandering aim;
Through all the frog the shining javelin flies,
And near the vanquish'd mouse the victor dies.

The dreadful stroke Crambophagus affrights,
Long bred to banquets, less inur'd to fights;
Heedless he runs, and stumbles o'er the steep,
And wildly floundering flashes up the deep:
Lychenor following with a downward blow,
Reach'd in the lake his unrecover'd foe;
Gasping he rolls, a purple stream of blood
Distains the surface of the silver flood;