Then wheeling down the fteep of heav'n he flies, And draws a radiant circle o'er the skies.

Meantime the banish'd Polynices roves

(His Thebes abandon'd) thro' th' Aonian groves, nA
While future realms his wandring thoughts delight, T
His daily vision, and his dream by night;
Forbidden Thebes appears before his eye,

From whence he fees his abfent brother fly,

1

With transport views the airy rule his own, T

And fwells on an imaginary throne.

Fain would he caft a tedious age away,

And live out all in one triumphant day. A

He chides the lazy progrefs of the fun,

And bids the year with fwifter motion run.

1

With anxious hopes his craving mind is toft, still And all his joys in length of wishes lost.

The hero then refolves his courfe to bend

Where ancient Danaus fruitful fields extend,

And fam'd Mycene's lofty tow'rs afcend,

(Where late the fun did Atreus? crimes deteft] A And disappear'd, in horror of the feast.) or on Y

Bu machen ingåd och damb ac dimor

And

And now by chance, by fate, or furies led,
From Bacchus' confecrated caves he fled,

Where the fhrill cries of frantic matrons found,
And Pentheus' blood enrich'd the rifing ground.
Then fees Cytheron tow'ring o'er the plain,
And thence declining gently to the main.
Next to the bounds of Nifus' realm repairs,
Where treach'rous Scylla cut the purple hairs:
The hanging cliffs of Scyron's rock explores,
And hears the murmurs of the diff'rent shores :
Paffes the strait that parts the foaming feas,
And ftately Corinth's pleasing fite furveys.

'Twas now the time when Phoebus yields to night,
And rifing Cynthia fheds her filver light,
Wide o'er the world in folemn pomp fhe drew
Her airy chariot, hung with pearly dew;
All birds and beafts lie hufh'd; fleep steals away
The wild defires of men, and toils of day,
And brings, descending thro' the filent air,
A fweet forgetfulness of human care.
Yet no red clouds, with golden borders gay,
Promise the skies the bright return of day;
Iiii

No

No faint reflections of the diftant light

Streak with long gleams the scatt'ring fhades of night;
From the damp earth impervious vapours rife, T
Encrease the darkness and involve the skies.

At once the rushing winds with roaring found
Burst from th' Æolian caves, and rend the ground,
With equal rage their airy quarrel try,
And win by turns the kingdom of the sky:
But with a thicker night black Aufter fhrouds
The heav'ns, and drives on heaps the rowling clouds,
From whose dark womb a ratling tempest pours,
Which the cold north congeals to haily fhow'rs.
From pole to pole the thunder roars aloud,
And broken lightnings flash from ev'ry cloud.
Now fmoaks with fhow'rs the misty mountain-ground,
And floated fields lie undistinguish'd round:
Th' Inachian ftreams with headlong fury run,, 17
And Erafinus rowls a deluge on:

The foaming Lerna fwells above its bounds,
And spreads its ancient poifons o'er the grounds

H

Where late was duft, now rapid torrents play,
Rush thro' the mounds, and bear the damms away:

Old

Old limbs of trees from crackling forests torn,
Are whirl'd in air, and on the winds are born ;
The storm the dark Lycean groves display'd,
And first to light expos'd the facred fhade.
Th' intrepid Theban hears the bursting sky,
Sees yawning rocks in maffy fragments fly,
And views astonish'd, from the hills afar,
The floods defcending and the watry war,
That driv'n by ftorms, and pouring o'er the plain,
Swept herds, and hinds, and houfes to the main.
Thro' the brown horrors of the night he fled,
Nor knows, amaz'd, what doubtful path to tread,
His brother's image to his mind appears,

Inflames his heart withrage, and wings his feet with fears.
So fares a failor on the ftormy main,

When clouds conceal Bootes golden wain,
When not a star its friendly luftre keeps,
Nor trembling Cynthia glimmers on the deeps
He dreads the rocks, and fhoals, and feas, and skies,
While thunder roars, and lightning round him flies.
Thus ftrove the chief on ev'ry fide diftrefs'd,
Thus ftill his courage, with his toils, encreas'd;

With his broad fhield oppos'd, he forc'd his way
Thro' thickest woods, and rouz'd the beafts of prey.
Till he beheld, where from Lariffa's height
The thelving walls reflect a glancing light;
Thither with hafte the Theban hero flies;
On this fide Lerna's pois'nous water lies,
On that, Profymna's grove and temple rife:
He pafs'd the gates which then unguarded lay,
And to the regal palace bent his way;
On the cold marble spent with toil he lies,
And waits till pleafing flumbers feal his eyes.
Adraftus here his happy people fways,
Blefs'd with calm peace in his declining days,
By both his parents of defcent divine,
Great Jove and Phoebus grac'd his noble line;
Heav'n had not crown'd his wishes with a fon,
But two fair daughters heir'd his fstate and throne.
To him Apollo (wondrous to relate!

But who can pierce into the depths of fate?)

Had fung---" Expect thy fons on Argos' fhore, "A yellow lion and a bristly boar.

5

This,