Page:The Poetical Works of Thomas Parnell (1833).djvu/189

Through the wide wound the rushing entrails throng,
And slow the breathless carcass floats along.

Lymnisius good Tyroglyphus assails,
Prince of the mice that haunt the flowery vales,
Lost 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 shuns by flight,
Drops the green target, springing quits the foe,
Glides through the lake, and safely dives below.
But dire Pternophagus divides his way
Through breaking ranks, and leads the dreadful day.
No nibbling prince excell'd in fierceness more,
His parents fed him on the savage boar;
But where his lance the field with blood imbru'd,
Swift as he mov'd, Hydrocharis pursu'd,
Till fallen in death he lies; a shattering stone
Sounds on the neck, and crushes all the bone;
His blood pollutes the verdure of the plain,
And from his nostrils bursts the gushing brain.

Lychopinax with Borb'rocœtes fights,
A blameless frog whom humbler life delights;
The fatal javelin unrelenting flies,
And darkness seals the gentle croaker's eyes.

Incens'd Prassophagus, with sprightly bound,
Bears Cnissodioctes off the rising ground,