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"SERAP. Portents and prodigies have grown so frequent,

      That they have lost their name. Our fruitful Nile

      Flowed ere the wonted season, with a torrent

      So unexpected, and so wondrous fierce,

      That the wild deluge overtook the haste

      Even of the hinds that watched it: Men and beasts

      Were borne above the tops of trees, that grew

      On the utmost margin of the water-mark.

      Then, with so swift an ebb that flood drove backward,

      It slipt from underneath the scaly herd:

      Here monstrous phocae: panted on the shore;

      Forsaken dolphins there with their broad tails,

      Lay lashing the departing waves: hard by them,

      Sea horses floundering in the slimy mud,

      Tossed up their heads, and dashed the ooze about them..."

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