56 DIRECT INJURIES FROM MOTHS. 



Through all the fields of wit he flies, 

 Dreadful his head with clust'ring eyes, 

 With horns without, and tusks within, 

 And scales to serve him for a skin. 

 Observe him nearly, lest he climb 

 To wound the bards of ancient time ; 

 Or down the vale of fancy go, 

 To tear some modern wretch below : 

 On every corner fix thine eye, 

 Or ten to one he slips thee by. 



See where his teeth a passage eat ; 

 We'll rouse him from the deep retreat. 

 But who the shelter 's forced to give ? 

 'Tis sacred Virgil, as I live ! 

 From leaf to leaf, from song to song, 

 He draws the tadpole form along, 

 He mounts the gilded edge before, 

 He 's up, he scuds the cover o'er ; 

 He turns he doubles there he past, 

 And here we have him caught at last. 



Insatiate brute, whose teeth abuse 

 The sweetest servants of the muse ! 

 (Nay, never ofler to deny, 

 I took thee in the fact to fly. ) 

 His roses nipt in every page, 

 My poor Anacreon mourns thy rage. 

 By thee my Ovid wounded lies ; 

 By thee my Lesbia's sparrow dies ; 

 Thy rabid teeth have half destroy'd 

 The work of love in Biddy Floyd ; 

 They sent Belinda's locks away, 

 And spoil'd the Blouzelind of Gay. 

 For all, for every single deed, 

 Relentless justice bids thee bleed. 

 Then fall a victim to the Nine, 

 Myself the priest, my desk the shrine. 

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