Page:Vida's Art of Poetry.djvu/71

Some think they could not pass the time away,$\scriptstyle {\left.{\begin{matrix}\ \\\\\ \ \end{matrix}}\right\}\,}$
In such long narratives, and cool delay,
Amidst the raging tumult of the day.
But yet we hear fierce Diomed relate,
The crime of bold Lycurgus, and his fate;
And Glaucus talks of brave Bellerophon,
Doom'd for a lawless passion, not his own;
Sets forth the heroe's great exploits to view,$\scriptstyle {\left.{\begin{matrix}\ \\\\\ \ \end{matrix}}\right\}\,}$
How the bold chief the dire Chimæra slew,
The Solymæan host, and Amazonian crew.
For those surprizing fictions are design'd
With their sweet falsehoods to delight the mind;
The bards expect no credit should be giv'n
To the bare lye, tho' authoriz'd by heav'n,
Which oft' with confidence they vent abroad,
Beneath the needful sanction of a god.
'Twas thus the ^[1] roasted heifers of the sun
Spoke o'er the fire with accents not their own;
'Twas thus ^[2] Achilles' steed his silence broke,
And ^[3] Trojan ships in human voices spoke;

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1. Vid. Odyss. Lib. 12. v. 395.
2. Ill. Lib. 17. v. 426.
3. Æneid. L. 10. v. 228.

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