X The Mountain in Labour13
A mountain was in travail pang;
The country with her clamour rang.
Out ran the people all, to see,
Supposing that the birth would be
A city, or at least a house.
It was a mouse!
In thinking of this fable,
Of story feign’d and false,
But meaning veritable,
My mind the image calls
Of one who writes, “The war I sing
Which Titans waged against the Thunder-king.”14
As on the sounding verses ring,
What will be brought to birth?
Why, dearth.
[13] Phaedrus, IV. 22. [14] The War, &c.—The war of the Gods and Titans (sons of Heaven and Earth); vide Hesiod, Theogony, I. 1083, Bohn’s ed.