The Works of the English Poets, from Chaucer to Cowper;: Rowe's Lucan ...

So if a conduit-pipe e'er burst you saw,
Swift spring the gushing waters thro' the flaw:
Then spouting in a bow, they rise on high,
And a new fountain plays amid the sky.
The berries, stain'd with blood, began to show
A dark complexion, and forgot their snow;
While fatten'd with the flowing gore, the root
Was doom'd for ever to a purple fruit.
"Mean time poor Thisbe fear'd, so, long she
stay'd,

Her lover might suspect a perjur'd maid.

Her fright scarce o'er, she strove the youth to find
With ardent eyes, which spoke an ardent mind.
Already in his arms, she hears him sigh
At her destruction, which was once so nigh.
The tomb, the tree, but not the fruit she knew;
The fruit she doubted for its alter'd hue.
Still as she doubts, her eyes a body found
Quiv'ring in death, and gasping on the ground.
She started back, the red her cheeks forsook,
And ev'ry nerve with thrilling horrours shook.
So trembles the smooth surface of the seas,
If brush'd o'er gently with a rising breeze.
But when her view her bleeding love confess'd,
She shriek'd, she tore her hair, she beat her breast.
She rais'd the body, and embrac'd it round,
And bath'd with tears unfeign'd the gaping wound.
Then her warm lips to the cold face apply'd,
And is it thus, ah! thus we meet?' she cry'd:
'My Pyramus! whence sprung thy cruel fate?
My Pyramus-ah! speak, ere 'tis too late.
1, thy own Thisbe, but one word implore,
One word thy Thisbe never ask'd before.'
At Thisbe's name, awak'd, he open'd wide
His dying eyes; with dying eyes he try'd
On her to dwell, but clos'd them slow, and dy'd.
"The fatal cause was now at last explor'd,
Her veil she knew, and saw his sheathless sword:
'From thy own hand thy ruin thou hast found,'
She said; but love first taught that hand to wound.
Ev'n I for thee as bold a hand can show,
And love, which shall as true direct the blow.
I will against the woman's weakness strive,
And never thee, lamented youth, survive.
The world may say, I caus'd, alas! thy death,
But saw thee breathless, and resign'd my breath.
Fate, tho' it conquers, shall no triumph gain,
Fate, that divides us, still divides in vain.
Now, both our cruel parents, hear my pray'r;
My pray'r to offer for us both I dare;
Oh! see our ashes in one urn confin'd,
Whom Love at first, and Fate at last has join'd.
The bliss, you envy'd, is not our request;
Lovers, when dead, may sure together rest.
Thou, tree, where now one lifeless lump is laid,
Ere long o'er two shalt cast a friendly shade.
Still let our loves from thee be understood,
Still witness in thy purple fruit our blood.'
She spoke, and in her bosom plung'd the sword
All warm and reeking from its slaughter'd lord.

"The pray'r, which dying Thisbe had preferr'd,
Both gods, and parents, with compassion heard.
The whiteness of the mulberry soon fled,
And, rip'ning, sadden'd in a dusky red :
While both their parents their lost children mourn,
And mix their ashes in one golden urn."

Thus did the melancholy tale conclude,
And a short, silent interval ensu'd.

The next in birth unloos'd her artful tongue,
And drew attentive all the sister-throng.

THE STORY OF leucothoe and the sun.
"THE Sun, the source of light, by beauty's pow'r
Once am'rous grew; then hear the Sun's amour.
Venus and Mars, with his far-piercing eyes,
This god first spy'd; this god first all things spies.
Stung at the sight, and swift on mischief bent,
The goddess and her god gallant betray'd,
To haughty Juno's shapeless son he went:
And told the cuckold, where their pranks were
play'd.

Poor Vulcan soon desir'd to hear no more,
He dropp'd his hammer, and he shook all o'er;
Then courage takes, and full of vengeful ire
He heaves the bellows, and blows fierce the fire:
From liquid brass, tho' sure, yet subtle snares
He forms, and next a wond'rous net prepares,
Drawn with such curious art, so nicely sły,
Unseen the mashes cheat the searching eye.
Not half so thin their webs the spiders weave,
Which the most wary, buzzing prey deceive.
These chains, obedient to the touch, he spread
In secret foldings o'er the conscious bed:
The conscious bed again was quickly prest
By the fond pair, in lawless raptures blest.
Mars wonder'd at his Cytherea's charms,
More fast than ever lock'd within her arms.
While Vulcan th' iv'ry doors unbarr'd with care,
Then call'd the gods to view the sportive pair:
The gods throng'd in, and saw in open day,
Where Mars, and beauty's queen, all naked
lay.

O! shameful sight, if shameful that we name,
Which gods with envy view'd, and could not blame;
Each deity, with laughter tir'd, departs,
But, for the pleasure, wish'd to bear the shame.
Yet all still laugh'd at Vulcan in their hearts.
"Thro' Heav'n the news of this surprisal run,
But Venus did not thus forget the Sun.
He, who stol'n transports idly had betray'd,
By a betrayer was in kind repaid.
What now avails, great god, thy piercing blaze?
That youth, and beauty, and those golden rays?
Thou, who can'st warm this universe alone,
And those bright eyes, which all things should sur-
Feel'st now a warmth more pow'rful than thy own:

vey,

Know not from fair Leucothoe to stray.
The lamp of light, for human good design'd,
Is to oue virgin niggardly confin'd.
Sometimes too early rise thy eastern beams,
Sometimes too late they set in western streams:
'Tis then her beauty thy swift course delays,
And gives to winter skies long summer days.
Now in thy face thy love-sick mind appears,
And spreads thro' impious nations empty fears:
For when thy beamless head is wrapt in night,
Poor mortals tremble in despair of light.
'Tis not the Moon, that o'er thee casts a veil,
Leucothoe is grown thy only care,
'Tis love alone, which makes thy looks so pale.

Not Phaeton's fair mother now is fair.
The youthful Rhodos moves no tender thought,
And beauteous Persa is at last forgot.
Fond Clytiè, scorn'd, yet lov'd, and sought thy
bed,

Ev'n then thy heart for other virgins bled.
Leucothöe has all thy soul possest,

And chas'd each rival passion from thy breast.

To this bright nymph Eurynomè gave birth
In the blest confines of the spicy earth.
Excelling others, she herself beheld

By her own blooming daughter far excell'd.
The sire was Orchamus, whose vast command,
The sev'nth from Belus, rul'd the Persian land.
"Deep in cool vales, beneath th' Hesperian sky,
For the Sun's fiery steeds the pastures lie.
Ambrosia there they eat, and thence they gain
New vigour, and their daily toils sustain.
While thus on heav'nly food the coursers fed,
And night, around, her gloomy empire spread,
The god assum'd the mother's shape and air,
And pass'd, unheeded, to his darling fair.

Close by a lamp, with maids encompass'd round,
The royal spinster full employ'd he found: [rest;'
Then cry'd, A-while from work, my daughter,
And, like a mother, scarce her lips he prest.
'Servants retire!-nor secrets dare to hear,
Intrusted only to a daughter's ear.'

They swift obey'd: not one, suspicious, thought
The secret, which their mistress would be taught.
Then be: Since now no witnesses are near,
Behold! the god, who guides the various year!
The world's vast eye, of light the source serene,
Who all things sees, by whom are all things seen.
Believe me, nymph! (for I the truth have show'd)
Thy charms have pow'r to charm so great a god.'
Confus'd, she heard him his soft passion tell,
And on the floor, untwirl'd, the spindle fell:
Still from the sweet confusion some new grace
Blush'd out by stealth, and languish'd in her

face.

The lover, now inflam'd, himself put on,
And out at once the god, all radiant, shone.
The virgin startled at his alter'd form,
Too weak to bear a god's impetuous storm:
No more against the dazzling youth she strove,
But silent yielded, and indulg'd his love.

"This Clytiè knew, and knew she was undone,
Whose soul was fix'd, and doted on the Sun.
She rag'd to think on her neglected charms,
And Phoebus panting in another's arms.
With envious madness fir'd, she flies in haste,
And tells the king, his daughter was unchaste.
The king, incens'd to hear his honour stain'd,
No more the father nor the man retain'd.

In vain she stretch'd her arms, and turn'd her eyes
To her lov'd god, th' enlight'ner of the skies.
In vain she own'd it was a crime, yet still
It was a crime uot acted by her will.
The brutal sire stood deaf to ev'ry pray'r,
And deep in earth entomb'd alive the fair.
What Phoebus could do, was by Phoebus done:
Full on her grave with pointed beams he shone:
To pointed beams the gaping earth gave way;
Had the nymph eyes, her eyes had seen the day,
But lifeless now, yet lovely still, she lay.
Not more the god wept, when the world was fir'd,
And in the wreck his blooming boy expir'd.
The vital flame he strives to light again,
And warm the frozen blood in ev'ry vein:
But since resistless fates deny'd that pow'r,
On the cold nymph he rain'd a nectar show'r.
Ah! undeserving thus,' he said, 'to die,
Yet still in odours thou shalt reach the sky.'
The body soon dissolv'd, and all around
Perfum'd with heav'nly fragrancies the ground.
A sacrifice for gods up-rose from thence,
A sweet,delightful tree of frankincense,

THE TRANSFORMATION OF CLYTIE.

"THOUGH guilty Clytiè thus the Sun betray'd,
By too much passion she was guilty made.
Excess of love begot excess of grief,
Grief fondly bad her hence to hope relief.
And scornful from her loath'd embraces flies;
But angry Phoebus hears, unmov'd, her sighs,
All day, all night, in trackless wilds, alone
She pin'd, and taught the list'ning rocks her moan.
On the bare earth she lies, her bosom bare,
Loose her attire, dishevei'd is her hair.
Nine times the Morn unbarr'd the gates of light,
As oft were spead th' alternate shades of night,
So long no sustenance the mourner knew,
Unless she drunk her tears, or suck'd the dew.
Turn'd to the Sun, still as he roll'd his round:
She turn'd about, but rose not from the ground,
On his bright face hung her desiring eyes,
Till fix'd to earth, she strove in vain to rise.
Her looks their paleness in a flow'r retain'd,
gain'd.
But here, and there, some purple streaks they

Still the lov'd object the fond leaves pursue,
Still move their root, the moving Sun to view,
And in the heliotrope the nymph is true."

The sisters heard these wonders with surprise,
And pertly rally'd, that they could not see
But part receiv'd them as romantic lies;
In pow'rs divine so vast an energy.
Part own'd, true gods such miracles might do,
At last a common, just request they make,
But own'd not Bacchus one among the true.
And beg Alcithoë her turn to take.
"I will," she said, " and please you, if I can."
Then shot her shuttle swift, and thus began.

"The fate of Daphnis is a fate too known,
Whom an enamour'd nymph transform'd to stone,
Because she fear'd another nymph might see
The lovely youth, and love as much as she:
So strange the madness is of jealousy!
Nor shall I tell, what changes Scython made,
And how he walk'd a man, or tripp'd a maid.
You too would peevish frown, and patience want
To hear, how Celmis grew an adamant.
He once was dear to Jove, and saw of old
Jove when a child; but what he saw he told.
And the Curetes spring from bounteous show'rs;
Crocus and Smilax may be turn'd to flow'rs,
I pass a hundred legends' stale, as these,
And with sweet novelty your taste will please.

THE STORY OF SALMACIS AND HERMAPHRODITUS.

By Mr. Addison.

"How Salmacis with weak enfeebling streams
And what the secret cause, shall here be shown;
Softens the body, and unnerves the limbs,
The cause is secret, but th' effect is known.

"The Naïds nurst an infant heretofore,
That Cytherea once to Hermes bore:
From both th' illustrious authors of his race
The child was nam'd; nor was it hard to trace
Both the bright parents thro' the infant's face.
When fifteen years in Ida's cool retreat
The boy had told, he left his native seat,
And sought fresh fountains in a foreign soil:
The pleasure lessen'd the attending toil.
With eager steps the Lycian fields he crost,
And fields that border on the Lycian coast;

A river here he view'd so lovely bright,
It show'd the bottom in a fairer light,

Nor kept a sand conceal'd from human sight.
The stream produc'd nor slimy ooze, nor weeds,
Nor miry rushes, nor the spiky reeds;
But dealt enriching moisture all around,
The fruitful banks with cheerful verdure crown'd,
And kept the spring eternal on the ground.
A nymph presides, not practis'd in the chase,
Nor skilful at the bow, nor at the race;
Of all the blue-ey'd daughters of the main,
The only stranger to Diana's train:
Her sisters often, as 'tis said, would cry,
Fie, Salmacis: what, always idle! fie!
Or take thy quiver, or thy arrows seize,
And mix the toils of hunting with thy ease.'
Nor quiver she nor arrows e'er would seize,
Nor mix the toils of hunting with her ease.
But oft would bathe her in the crystal tide,
Oft with a comb her dewy locks divide;
Now in the limpid streams she views her face,
And drest her image in the floating glass:
On beds of leaves she now repos'd her limbs,
Now gather'd flow'rs that grew about her streams,
And then by chance was gathering, as she stood
To view the boy, and long'd for what she view'd.
"Fain would she meet the youth with hasty feet,
She fain would meet him, but refus'd to meet
Before her looks were set with nicest care,
And well deserv'd to be reputed fair.
Bright youth,' she cries, whom all thy features
A god, and, if a god, the god of love;
But if a mortal, blest thy nurse's breast,
Blest are thy parents, and thy sisters blest:
But oh how blest! how more than blest thy bride,
Aily'd in bliss, if any yet ally'd.

If so, let mine the stolen enjoyments
If not, behold a willing bride in me.'

be;

[prove

His lovely limbs the silver waves divide,
His limbs appear more lovely through the tide,
As lilies shut within a crystal case,
Receive a glossy lustre from the glass.
'He's mine, he's all my own,' the Naïad cries,
And flings off all, and after him she flies.
And now she fastens on him as he swims,
And holds him close, and wraps about his limbs.
The more the boy resisted, and was coy,
The more she clipt, and kist the struggling boy.
So when the wriggling snake is snatcht on high
In eagle's claws, and hisses in the sky,
Around the foe his twirling tail he flings,
And twists her legs, and writhes about her wings.
"The restless boy still obstinately strove
To free himself, and still refus'd her love,
Amidst his limbs she kept her limbs intwin'd,
And why, coy youth,' she cries,

unkind?

why thus

Oh may the gods thus keep us ever join'd!
Oh may we never, never, never part again!
So pray'd the nymph, nor did she pray in vain:
For now she finds him, as his limbs she prest,
Grow nearer still, and nearer to her breast;
Till, piercing cach the other's flesh, they run
Together, and incorporate in one:

Last in one face are both their faces join'd,
As when the stock and grafted twig combin'd
Shoot up the same, and wear a common rind:
Both bodies in a single body mix,
A single body with a double sex.

"The boy, thus lost in woman, now survey'd
The river's guilty stream, and thus be pray'd.
(He pray'd, but wonder'd at his softer tone,
Surpris'd to hear a voice but half his own.)
'You parent-gods, whose heav'nly names I bear,
Hear your hermaphrodite, and grant my pray';
Oh grant, that whomsoe'er these streams contaio,

"The boy knew nought of love, and toucht with If man he enter'd, he may rise again

shame,

He strove, and blusht, but still the blush became:
In rising blushes still fresh beauties rose;
The sunny side of fruit such blushes shows,
And such the Moon, when all her silver white
Turns in eclipses to a ruddy light.

The nymph still begs, if not a nobler bliss,
A cold salute at least, a sister's kiss:
And now prepares to take the lovely boy
Between her arms. He, innocently coy,
Replies, Or leave me to myself alone,
You rude uncivil nymph, or I'll be gone.'
'Fair stranger then,' says she, it shall be so;'
And, for she fear'd his threats, she feign'd to go:
But hid within a covert's neighbouring green,
She kept him stili in sight, herself unseen.
The boy now fancies all the danger o'er,
And innocently sports about the shore:
Playful and wanton to the stream he trips,
And dips his foot, and shivers as he dips.
The coolness pleas'd him, and with eager haste
His airy garments on the banks he cast;
His godlike features, and his heav'nly hue,
And all his beauties were expos'd to view.
His naked limbs the nymph with rapture spies,
While hotter passions in her bosom rise,
Flush in her cheeks, and sparkle in her eyes.
She longs, she burns to clasp him in her arms,
And looks, and sighs, and kindles at his charms.
"Now all undrest upon the banks he stood,
And clapt his sides, and leapt into the flood:

Supple, unsinew'd, and but half a man!

"The heav'nly parents answer'd, from on high,
Their two-shap'd son, the double votary;
Then gave a secret virtue to the flood,
And ting'd its source to make his wishes good."

Continued by Mr. Eusden.

ALCITHÖE AND HER SISTERS TRANSFORMED TO
BATS.

BUT Mineus' daughters still their tasks pursue,
To wickedness most obstinately true:
At Bacchus still they laugh; when all around,
Unseen, the timbrels hoarse were heard to

sound.

Saffron and myrrh their fragrant odours shed,
And now the present deity they dread.
Strange to relate! Here ivy first was seen,
Along the distaff crept the wond'rous green.
Then sudden-springing vines began to bloom,
And the soft tendrils curl'd around the loom:
While purple clusters, dangling from on high,
Ting'd the wrought purple with a second dye,

Now from the skies was shot a doubtful light,
The day declining to the bounds of night.
The fabric's firm foundations shake all o'er,
False tigers rage, and figur'd lions roar.
Torches, aloft, seem blazing in the air,
And angry flashes of red light'nings glare,
To dark recesses, the dire sight o sbun,
Swift the pale sisters in confusion run.

Their arms were lost in pinions, as they fled,
And subtle films cach slender limb o'erspread.
Their aiter'd forms their senses soon reveal'd;
Their forms, how alter'd, darkness still conceal'd.
Close to the roof each, wond'ring, upwards springs,
Borne on unknown, transparent, plumeless wings.
They strove for words; their little bodies found
No words, but murmur'd in a fainting sound.
In towns, not woods, the sooty bats delight,
And never, till the dusk, begin their flight;
Till Vesper rises with his ev'ning flame:
From whom the Romans have deriv'd their name.
THE TRANSFORMATION OF INO AND MELICERTA
TO SEA-GODS.

THE pow'r of Bacchus now o'er Thebes had flown:

With awful rev'rence soon the god they own.
Proud Ino all around the wonder tells,
And on her nephew deity still dwells.

Of num'rous sisters, she alone yet knew

No grief, but grief which she from sisters drew.
Imperial Juno saw her with disdain
Vain in her offspring, in her consort vain,
Who rul'd the trembling Thebaus with a nod,
But saw her vainest in her foster-god.
"Could then," she cry'd, “a bastard boy have
pow'r

To make a mother her own son devour?
Could be the Tuscan crew to fishes change,
And now three sisters damn to forms so strange?
Yet shall the wife of Jove find no relief!
Shall she, still unreveng'd, disclose her grief!
Have I the mighty freedom to complain?
Is that my pow'r? Is that to ease my pain?
A foe has taught me vengeance, and who ought
To scoin that vengeance, which a foe has taught?
What sure destruction frantic rage can throw,
The gaping wounds of slaughter'd Pentheus show.
Why should not Ino, fir'd with madness, stray,
Like her mad sisters her own kindred slay?
Why, she not follow, where they lead the way?"
Down a steep, yawning cave, where yews dis-
play'd

In arches meet, and lend a baleful shade,
Through silent labyrinths a passage lies
To mournful regions, and infernal skies.
Here Styx exhales its noisome clouds, and here,
The fun'ral rites once paid, all souls appear.
Stiff cold, and horrour with a ghastly face
And staring eyes, infest the dreary place,
Ghosts, new-arriv'd, and strangers to these plains,
Know not the palace where grim Pluto reigns.
They journey doubtful, nor the road can tell,
Which leads to the metropolis of Hell.
A thousand avenues those tow'rs command,
A thousand gates for ever open stand.
As all the rivers, disembogu'd, find room
For all their waters in old ocean's womb:
So this vast city worlds of shades receives,
And space for millions still of worlds she leaves.
Th' unbody'd spectres freely rove, and show
Whate'er they lov'd on Earth, they love below.
The lawyers still, or right, or wrong, support,
The courtiers smoothly glide to Pluto's court,
Still airy heroes thoughts of glory fire,
Still the dead poet strings his deathless lyre,
And lovers still with fancy'd darts expire.

The queen of Heaven, to gratify her hate,
And sooth immortal wrath, forgets her state.

Down from the realms of day, to realms of night,
The goddess swift precipitates her flight.
At Hell arriv'd, the noise Hell's porter heard,
Th' enormous dog his triple head up-rear'd:
Thrice from three grizly throats he howl'd pro-
found,
[ground.
Then suppliant couch'd, and stretch'd along the
The trembling threshold, which Saturnia prest,
The weight of such divinity confest.

Before a lofty, adamantine gate,
Which clos'd a tow'r of brass, the Furies sate;
Mis-shapen forms, tremendous to the sight,
Th' implacable foul daughters of the Night.
A sounding whip each bloody sister shakes,
Or from her tresses combs the curling snakes.
But now great Juno's majesty was known;
Through the thick gloom, all heav'nly bright, she
shone:

The hideous monsters their obedience show'd,
And, rising from their seats, submissive bow'd.

This is the place of woe, here groan the dead;
Huge Tityus o'er nine acres here is spread.
Fruitful for pain th' immortal liver breeds,
Still grows, and still th' insatiate vulture feeds.
Poor Tautalus to taste the water tries,
But from his lips the faithless water flies:
Then thinks the bending tree he can command;
The tree starts backwards, and eludes his hand.
The labour too of Sisyphus is vain,

[pain,
Up the steep mount he heaves the stone with
Down from the summit rolls the stone again.
The Belides their leaky vessels still
Are ever filling, and yet never fill:
Doom'd to this punishment for blood they shed,
For bridegroom slaughter'd in the bridal bed.
Stretch'd on the rolling wheel Ixion lies;
Himself he follows, and himself he flies;
Ixion, tortur'd, Juno sternly ey'd,
Then turn'd, and toiling Sisyphus espy'd:
"And why," she said, "so wretched is the fate
Of him, whose brother proudly reigns in state?
Yet still my altars unador'd have been
By Athamas, and his presumptuous queen."

What caus'd her hate the goddess thus confest, What caus'd her journey now was more than That hate, relentless, its revenge did want, [guest. And that revenge the Furies soon could grant: They could the glory of proud Thebes efface, And hide in ruin the Cadmean race. For this she largely promises, entreats, And to entreaties adds emperial threats.

Then fell Tisiphonè with rage was stung, And from her mouth th' untwisted serpents flung. "To gain this trifling boon, there is no need," She cry'd," in formal speeches to proceed. Whatever thou command'st to do, is done; Believe it finish'd, though not yet begun. But from these melancholy seats repair To happier mansions, and to purer air." She spoke the goddess, darting upwards, flies, And joyous re-ascends her native skies: Nor enter'd there, till 'round her Iris threw Ambrosial sweets, and pour'd celestial dew.

The faithful Fury, guiltless of delays,
With cruel haste the dire command obeys.
Girt in a bloody gown, a torch she shakes,
And round her neck twines speckled wreaths of
snakes.

Fear, and Dismay, and agonizing Pain,
With frantic Rage, complete her loveless train.

To Thebes her flight she sped, and Hell forsook; | At her approach the Theban turrets shook: [cast, The Sun shrunk back, thick clouds the day o'erAnd springing greens were wither'd as she past. Now, dismal yellings heard, strange spectres

seen,

Confound as much the monarch as the queen.
In vain to quit the palace they prepar'd,
Tisiphone was there, and kept the ward.
She wide extended her unfriendly arms,
And all the fury lavish'd all her harms.
Part of her tresses loudly hiss, and part
Spread poison, as their forky tongues they dart.
Then from her middle locks two snakes she drew,
Whose merit from superior mischief grew:
Th' envenom'd ruin thrown with spiteful care,
Clung to the bosoms of the hapless pair. [fir'd,
The hapless pair soon with wild thoughts were
And madness by a thousand ways inspir'd.
"Tis true, th' unwounded body still was sound,
But 'twas the soul which felt the deadly wound,
Nor did th' unsated monster here give o'er,
But dealt of plagues a fresh, unnumber'd store.
Each baneful juice too well she understood,
Foam, churn'd by Cerberus, and Hydra's blood,
Hot hemlock and cold aconite she chose,
· Delighted in variety of woes.

Whatever can untune th' harmonious soul,
And its mild, reas'ning faculties control,
Give false ideas, raise desires profane,
And whirl in eddies the tumultuous brain,
Mix'd with curs'd art, she direfully around
Thro' all their nerves diffus'd the sad compound.
Then toss'd her torch in circles still the same,
Improv'd their rage, and added flame to flame.
The grinning fury her own conquest spy'd,
And to her rueful shades return'd with pride,
And threw th' exhausted, useless snakes aside.
Now Athamas cries out, his reason fled,
"Here, fellow-hunters, let the toils be spread.
I saw a lioness, in quest of food,
With her two young, run roaring in this wood."
Again the fancy'd savages were seen,

As thro' his palace still he chas'd his queen;
Then tore Learchus from her breast: the child
Stretch'd little arms, and on its father smil'd:
A father now no more, who now begun
Around his head to whirl his giddy son,
And, quite insensible to nature's call,
The helpless infant flung against the wall.
The same mad poison in the mother wrought;
Young Melicerta in her arms she caught,
And with disorder'd tresses, howling, flies,
"()! Bacchus, Evôe, Bacchus!" loud she cries.
"The name of Bacchus Juno laugh'd to hear,
And said, "Thy foster-god has cost thee dear."
A rock there stood, whose side the beating waves
Had long consum'd, and hollow'd into caves.
The head shot forwards in a bending steep,
And cast a dreadful covert o'er the deep.
The wretched Ino, on destruction bent,
Climb'd up the cliff; such strength her fury lent:
Thence with her guiltless boy, who wept in vain,
At one bold spring she plung'd into the main.

Her niece's fate touch'd Cytherea's breast,
And in soft sounds she Neptune thus address'd.
"Great god of waters, whose extended sway
Is next to his, whom Heav'n and Earth obey:
Let not the suit of Venus thee displease,
Pity the floaters on th' Ionian seas.

Increase thy subject-gods, nor yet disdain
To add my kindred to that glorious train.
If from the sea I may such honours claim,
If 'tis desert, that from the sea I came,
As Grecian poets artfully have sung,
And in the name confest, from whence I sprung."
Pleas'd Neptune nodded his assent, and free
Both soon became from frail mortality.
He gave them form, and majesty divine,
And bad them glide along the foamy brine.
For Melicerta is Palæmon known,
And Ino once, Leucothöe is grown.

THE TRANSFORMATION of the tHEBAN

MATRONS.

THE Theban matrons their lov'd queen pursu'd, And tracing to the rock, her footsteps view'd. Too certain of her fate, they rend the skies With piteous shrieks, and lamentable cries, All beat their breasts, and Juno all upbraid, Who still remember'd a deluded maid: Who, still revengeful-for one stol'u embrace, Thus wreak'd her hate on the Cadmean race. This Juno heard; “And shall such elfs," she cry'd,

"Dispute my justice, or my pow'r deride? You too shall feel my wrath not idly spent; A goddess never for insults was meant."

[been,

She, who lov'd most, and who most lov'd had Said, "Not the waves shall part me from my queen.” She strove to plunge into the roaring flood; Fix'd to the stone, a stone herself she stood. This, on her breast would fain her blows repeat, Her stiffen'd hands refus'd her breast to beat. That, stretch'd her arms unto the seas; in vain Her arms she labour'd to unstretch again. To tear her comely, locks another try'd, Both comely locks, and fingers petrify'd. Part thus; but Juno with a softer mind Part doom'd to mix among the feather'd kind. Transform'd, the name of Theban birds they keep, And skim the surface of that fatal deep.

CADMUS AND HIS QUEEN TRANSFORMED TO SERPENTS.

MEAN time, the wretched Cadmus mourns, nor That they who mortal fell, immortal rose. [knows With a long series of new ills opprest,

He droops, and all the man forsakes his breast.
Strange prodigies confound his frighted eyes;
From the fair city, which he rais'd, he flies;
As if misfortune not pursu'd his race,
But only hung o'er that devoted place.
Resolv'd by sea to seek some distant land,
At last he safely gain'd th' Illyrian strand.
Cheerless himself, his consort still he cheers,
Hoary, and loaden'd both with woes and years.
Then to recount past sorrows they begin,
And trace them to the gloomy origin.
"That serpent sure was hallow'd," Cadmus cry'd,
"Which once my spear transfix'd with foolish
When the big teeth, a seed before unknown, [pride:
By me along the wond'ring glebe were sown,
And sprouting armies by themselves o'erthrown.
If thence the wrath of Heav'n on me is bent,
May Heav'n conclude it with one sad event;
To an extended serpent change the man:"
And while he spoke, the wish'd-for change began.
His skin with sea-green spots was vary'd 'round,
And on his belly prone he prest the ground,

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