For in the forest with his guide,
He hears her wailing young,
To whom the tender beast replied.
With a maternal tongue.

He sees them only in his thought,
For in a curious snare,
The hapless little creatures caught,
Could only murmur there.

Deep in an earthy trap they lay,
An iron grate above,
Precluded them from chearful day,
And from a mother's love!

But quicken'd by the touching sound,
The little captives made,
The generous Caelius clear'd the ground.
And all the snare display'd.

Two vigorous cubs spring up to light,
And to their parent haste;
Caelius a third, in tenderer plight,
Within the pit embrac'd!

For in he leap'd, to save the young,
That seem'd to suffer harm;
And swiftly from the pit he sprung,
The cub beneath his arm.