Page:Ovid's Metamorphoses (Vol. 1) - tr Garth, Dryden, et. al. (1727).djvu/85

Small Exhortation needs; your Pow'rs employ:
And this bad World, so Jove requires, destroy.
Let loose the Reins to all your watry Store:
Bear down the Damms, and open ev'ry door.
The Floods, by Nature Enemies to Land,
And proudly swelling with their new Command,
Remove the living Stones, that stopt their way,
And gushing from their Source, augment the Sea.
Then, with his Mace, their Monarch struck the Ground;$\scriptstyle {\left.{\begin{matrix}\ \\\\\ \ \end{matrix}}\right\}\,}$
With inward trembling Earth receiv'd the Wound;
And rising Streams a ready passage found.
Th' expanded Waters gather on the Plain:
They float the Fields, and over-top the Grain;
Then rushing onwards, with a sweepy sway,
Bear Flocks, and Folds, and lab'ring Hinds away.
Nor safe their Dwellings were, for, sap'd by Floods,
Their Houses fell upon their Household Gods.
The solid Piles, too strongly built to fall,
High o'er their Heads, behold a watry Wall:
Now Seas and Earth were in confusion lost;
A World of Waters, and without a Coast.
One climbs a Cliff; one in his Boat is born;
And ploughs above, where late he sow'd his Corn.
Others o'er Chimney-tops and Turrets row,
And drop their Anchors on the Meads below:
Or downward driven, they bruise the tender Vine,
Or tost aloft, are knock'd aginst a Pine.
And where of late the Kids had cropt the Grass,
The Monsters of the deep now take their place.
Insulting Nereids on the Cities ride,
And wond'ring Dolphins o'er the Palace glide.
On leaves, and masts of mighty Oaks they brouze;
And their broad Finns entangle in the Boughs.
The frighted Wolf now swims amongst the Sheep;
The yellow Lion wanders in the deep:

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