238 SELECT POETRY

Whose lineage dated from the mud

At least of old Deucalion’s flood,!

Long hovering round a spacious lawn,

By various gusts of odours drawn,

At last established his repose:

On the rich bosom of a rose.

The palace pleased the lordly guest ;

What insect owned a prouder nest ?

The dewy leaves luxuriant shed

Their balmy odours o’er his head,

And with their silken tapestry fold

His limbs enthroned on central gold.

He thinks the thorns embattled? round

To guard his castle’s lovely mound,

And all the bush’s wide domain

Subservient to his fancied reign.

Such ample blessings swell the fly ;

Yet in his mind’s capacious eye

He scanned the change of mortal things,

The common fate of fiies and kings ;

With grief he saw how land and honours

Are apt to slide to various owners ;

Where Mowbrays* dwelt, here grocers dwell,

And cits4 now buy what barons sell.
“Great Pho:bus!° patriarch of my line,

Avert such shame from sons of thine ;

1 Deucalion’s flood took place in the year 1548 B.C.

2 Embattled—indented like a battlement.

3 Mowbray—the name of a noble English family, here
put generally for any noble family.

* Cits—citizens.

5 Phebus—in ancient mythology, the sun, or the sun-ged,
Apollo.