Thrice he to rush into the flames essay’d, Thrice with officious care by us was stay’d. Now, mad with grief, away he fled amain, Like a stung heifer, that resents the pain, And, bellowing loudly, bounds along the plain. O’er the most rugged ways so fast he ran, He seem’d a bird already, not a man; He left us breathless all behind, and now, In quest of death, had gain’d Parnassus’ brow; But when from thence headlong himself he threw, He fell not, but with airy pinions flew. Phoebus in pity changed him to a fowl, Whose crooked beak and claws the birds control, Little of bulk, but of a warlike soul. A hawk become, the feather’d race’s foe, He tries to ease his own, by others’ wo.”