Page:Scotish Descriptive Poems - Leyden (1803).djvu/83

The cruel hounds pour round on every hand;
Desperate, he turns to make a feeble stand:
Big tears on tears roll down his harmless face; 810
He falls, and sues in vain, alas! for grace.
Pitied and prized he dies. The ponderous prey
The jolly troop in triumph bear away.
 Nor men infest alone the open field;
Even Clyde's deep floods can no protection yield.
Man, formed by heaven to bless each living kind,
Their bounteous lord and guardian god designed,
Degenerate now, pursues relentless strife,
And robs for sport his subjects' harmless life.
By purifying frosts, when streams run clear, 820
The amorous salmons to the fords repair;
Unerring instinct moves their longing mind,
By wondrous ways to propagate their kind.
Not the red firebrand blazing o'er their head,
Can force the lovers from their watery bed;
So fierce love rages in their gelid blood,
The unheeded trident gores them in the flood.
Deep, deep they bury in a sandy bed
Their countless ova and prolific seed;
Which unobserved, long lurk beneath the tide, 830
Till Sol arrays the year in vernal pride;