Epigram

When first the Devil came in Milton’s view A swindging Tail upon his rump there grew: But when in Pandæmomium he appears How alter’d is his form! no tail he wears. Such difference in that Personage is seen As Milton by himself perceived, between His full-grown Epic and his stripling Ode— His tadpole Devil had become a Toad.

——th’ old Dragon— ——wroth to see his kingdom fail, Swindges the scaly horror of his folded tail. Ode on the Nativity.