ON THE HEAD OF A STAG.

So we some antique hero's strength Learn by his lance's weight and length, As these vast beams express the beast Whose shady brows alive they dress'd. Such game, while yet the world was new, The mighty Nimrod did pursue. What huntsman of our feeble race, Or dogs, dare such a monster chase, Resembling, with each blow he strikes, 9 The charge of a whole troop of pikes? O fertile head! which every year Could such a crop of wonder bear! The teeming earth did never bring So soon, so hard, so huge a thing; Which might it never have been cast (Each year's growth added to the last), These lofty branches had supplied The earth's bold sons' prodigious pride; Heaven with these engines had been scaled, When mountains heap'd on mountains fail'd. 20