The Poets Flocks. 24^ 



ful and loveable sight ; and the charm is often beautifully 

 translated into verse. Thus in Blomfield — 



" The teemmg ewes, that still their burdens bear : 

 Beneath whose sides to-morrow's dawn may see 

 The milk-white strangers bow the trembling knee. 

 And at their birth the pow'rful instinct's seen 

 That fills with champions all the daisied green, 

 For ewes that stood aloof with fearful eye, 

 With stamping foot now men and dogs defy, 

 And obstinately faithful to their young 

 Guard their first steps to join the bleating throng." 



Hurdis has the following curious passage about the 

 pastoral artifice of dressing up a lamb in the skin of another, 

 and thus palming it off upon some bereaved mother — - 



"Often let me mark 

 The sullen ewe's authoritative stamp 

 Where'er the sheep-dog passes. Let me smile 

 At her deluded sense, what time her lamb 

 By the bleak season slain, his wilted coat 

 Yields to the flayer, and the ravished twin 

 Of some fond mother, in the coarse disguise 

 Appears loose-coated, and usurps the dug. 

 Dull fool, how ill perceives thy stupid eye 

 The palpable imposture I '' 



The lamb, when not "prancing" and "gambolling," is 

 " witless " and " unconscious." Above all, it is innocent. 

 " Is not this a lamentable thing, that the skin of an innocent 

 lamb should be made parchment? that parchment being 

 scribbled o'er should undo a man ? " 



That the wolf should eat the lamb is therefore one of that 

 beast's most infamous points. It is intolerable to the poets, 

 and they are never weary of denouncing the base assassina- 

 tion. They admit the provocation the lamb gives by losing 

 itself, by bleating loudly, by opening doors which its mother 

 had particularly cautioned it to keep shut ; but their indig- 

 nation against the murderer is none the less unmeasured 



