'Twixt blunt rebuke and fulsome praise;
And sometimes use with easy grace,
The language of the Norman race.[11]

[10] Phaedrus. IV. 13.
[11] The Normans are proverbial among the French for the oracular
noncommittal of their responses.--_Un Normand_, says the proverb,
_a son dit et son detit._--Translator.




VIII.--THE VULTURES AND THE PIGEONS.[12]

Mars once made havoc in the air:
Some cause aroused a quarrel there
Among the birds;--not those that sing,
The courtiers of the merry Spring,
And by their talk, in leafy bowers,
Of loves they feel, enkindle ours;
Nor those which Cupid's mother yokes
To whirl on high her golden spokes;
But naughty hawk and vulture folks,
Of hooked beak and talons keen.
The carcass of a dog, 'tis said,
Had to this civil carnage led.
Blood rain'd upon the swarded green,
And valiant deeds were done, I ween.
But time and breath would surely fail
To give the fight in full detail;