Reliques of ancient English poetry: consisting of old heroic ballads ...

324
ANCIENT SONGS
Her feet were bright, his feet were fwift,
As hawk purfuing fparrow :
Her's had the metal, his the fpeed
Of Barfoot's * filver arrow.
Thetis to double pedagogue 315
Commits her deareft boy
; ;
Who bred him from a {lender twig
To be the fcourge of Troy :
But ere he laftit the Trojans, h' was
In Stygian waters lleept
As birch is foaked firft in pifs,
When boys are to be whipt.
With fkin exceeding hard, he >rofe
From lake, as black and muddy,
32.0
As lobfters from the ocean rife, 325
With ftiell about their body :
And, as from lobller's broken claw,
Pick out the nih you might
So might you from one unmell'd heel
Dig pieces of the knight. 33°
Kis myrmidons robb'd Priam's barns
And hen-roofts, fays the fong ;
Carried away both corn and eggs,
Like ants from whence they fprung.
Himfelf tore He&or ?
s pantaloons, 33^
And fent him down bard-breech'd
To pedant Radamanthus, in
A poiture to be fwitch'd.
But
Afamous letter-carrier at Oxford :