The northern breath, that freezes floods, he binds, With all the race of cloud-dispelling winds; The south he loosed, who night and horror brings, And fogs are shaken from his flaggy wings; From his divided heard two streams he pours, His head and rheumy eyes distil in showers. With rain his robe and heavy mantle flow, And lazy mists are lowering on his brow; Still as he swept along with his clench’d fist He squeezed the clouds, the imprison’d clouds resisit; The skies, from pole to pole, with peals resound, And showers enlarged, come pouring on the ground; Then, clad in colours of a various dye, Junonian Iris breeds a new supply To feed the clouds; impetuous rain descends, The bearded corn beneath the burden bends, Defrauded clowns deplore their perish’d grain, And the long labours of the year are vain.

“Small exhortation needs; your powers employ, And this bad world, so Jove requires, destroy, Let loose the reins to all your watery store, Bear down the dams, and open every door.”

One climbs a cliff; one in his boat is borne, 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 toss’d aloft, are knock’d against a pine. And where, of late, the kids had cropp’d the grass, The monsters of the deep now take their place; Insulting Nereids on the cities ride, And wondering dolphins o’er the palace glide; On leaves and masts of mighty oaks they browse, And their broad fins entangle in the boughs; The frighted wolf now swims among the sheep; The yellow lion wanders in the deep; His rapid force no longer helps the boar; The stag swims faster than he ran before; The fowls, long beating on their wings in vain, Despair of land, and drop into the main; Now hills and vales no more distinction know, And levell’d nature lies oppress’d below; The most of mortals perish in the flood, The small remainder dies for want of food.

A mountain of stupendous height there stands Betwixt the Athenian and Boeotian lands, The bound of fruitful fields, while fields they were, But then a field of waters did appear, Parnassus is its name, whose forky rise Mounts through the clouds and mates the lofty skies; High on the summit of this dubious cliff, Deucalion wafting, moor’d his little skiff; He with his wife were only left behind Of perish’d man; they two were human kind. The mountain nymphs and Themis they adore, And from her oracles relief implore. The most upright of mortal men was he; The most sincere and holy woman, she.

When Jupiter, surveying earth from high, Beheld it in a lake of water lie, That where so many millions lately lived, But two, the best of either sex, survived; He loosed the northern wind, fierce Boreas flies, To puff away the clouds and purge the skies; Serenely while he blows, the vapours driven, Discover heaven to earth, and earth to heaven. The billows fall, while Neptune lays his mace On the rough sea, and smooths its furrow’d face. Already Triton, at his call, appears Above the waves, a Tyrian robe he wears, And in his hand a crooked trumpet bears. The sovereign bids him peaceful sounds inspire And give the waves the signal to retire. His writhen shell he takes, whose narrow vent Grows by degrees into a large extent, Then gives it breath; the blast with doubling sound Runs the wide circuit of the world around; The sun first heard it, in his early east, And met the rattling echoes in the west; The waters, listening to the trumpet’s roar, Obey the summons, and forsake the shore.