DESCRIPTION OF WINTER.

BEWARE the January month, beware
Those hurtful days, that keenly piercing air
Which flays the herds; when icicles are cast
O'er the froze earth, and sheathe the nipping blast.
From courser-breeding Thrace comes rushing forth
O'er the broad sea the whirlwind of the North,
And moves it with his breath: the ocean floods
Heave, and earth bellows through her wild of
woods.

Full many an oak of lofty leaf he fells,

And strews with thick-branch'd pines the mountain dells:

He stoops to earth: the crash is heard around;
The depth of forests rolls the roar of sound.
The beasts their cow'ring tails with trembling fold,
And shrink and shudder at the gusty cold;
Thick is the hairy coat, the shaggy skin,
But that all-chilling breath shall pierce within.
Not his rough hide can then the ox avail;
The long-hair'd goat defenceless feels the gale:

Yet vain the north wind's rushing strength to

wound

The flock, with sheltering fleeces fenced around.
He bows the old man crook'd beneath the storm;
But spares the soft-skinn'd virgin's tender form.
Screen'd by her mother's roof on wintry nights,
And strange to golden Venus' mystic rites,
The suppling waters of the bath she swims,
With shining ointment sleeks her dainty limbs:
Within her chamber laid on downy bed,

While winter howls in tempest o'er her head.
Now gnaws the boneless polypus his feet,
Starv'd midst bleak rocks, his desolate retreat :
For now no more the sun with gleaming ray
Through seas transparent lights him to his prey.
O'er the swarth Æthiop rolls his bright career,
And slowly gilds the Grecian hemisphere.
And now the horned and unhorned kind,
Whose lair is in the wood, sore-famish'd grind
Their sounding jaws, and, chill'd and quaking, fly
Where oaks the mountain dells imbranch on high:
They seek to couch in thickets of the glen,
Or lurk deep-shelter'd in the rocky den.

Like aged men who, propp'd on crutches, tread Tottering with broken strength and stooping head; So move the beasts of earth, and, creeping low, Shun the white flakes and dread the drifting snow.

From the Theogony.

BATTLE OF THE GIANTS.

ALL on that day stirr'd up th' enormous strife,
Female and male; Titanic Gods, and sons
And daughters of old Saturn; and that band
Of giant brethren, whom from forth th' abyss
Of darkness under earth deliverer Jove
Sent up to light: grim forms and strong with force
Gigantic; arms of hundred-handed gripe
Burst from their shoulders; fifty heads up-sprang
Cresting their muscular limbs. They thus opposed
In dismal conflict 'gainst the Titans stood,
In all their sinewy hands wielding aloft
Precipitous rocks. On th' other side alert

The Titan phalanx closed; then hands of strength
Join'd prowess and show'd forth the works of war.
Th' immeasurable sea tremendous dash'd
With roaring, earth resounded, the broad Heaven
Groan'd shattering; huge Olympus reel'd through-

out

Down to its rooted base beneath the rush

Of those immortals. The dark chasm of hell

Was shaken with the trembling, with the tramp
Of hollow footsteps and strong battle-strokes,
And measureless uproar of wild pursuit.
So they against each other through the air
Hurl'd intermix'd their weapons, scattering groans
Where'er they fell. The voice of armies rose
With rallying shout through the starr'd firmament,
And with a mighty war-cry both the hosts
Encountering closed. Nor longer then did Jove
Curb down his force, but sudden in his soul
There grew dilated strength, and it was fill'd
With his omnipotence; his whole of might
Broke from him, and the godhead rush'd abroad.
The vaulted sky, the mount Olympus, flash'd
With his continual presence, for he pass'd
Incessant forth and lighten'd where he trod.
Thrown from his nervous grasp the lightnings flew
Reiterated swift, the whirling flash

Cast sacred splendour, and the thunderbolt
Fell. Then on every side the foodful earth
Roar'd in the burning flame, and far and near
The trackless depth of forests crash'd with fire.