Then rushing onwards, with a sweepy sway, Bear flocks, and folds, and lab'ring hinds away.

hands)

Mankind is broken loose from moral bands:
No rights of hospitality remain;

The guest, by him who harbour'd him, is slain;
The son-in-law pursues the father's life;
The wife her husband murders, he the wife;
The stepdame poison for the son prepares;
The son inquires into his father's years;
Faith flies, and piety in exile mourns;
And Justice, here oppress'd, to heaven returns.

THE DELUGE.

ALREADY had Jove toss'd the flaming brand,
And roll'd the thunder in his spacious hand;
Preparing to discharge on seas and land:
But stopp'd, for fear, thus violently driven,
The sparks should catch his axle-tree of heaven.
Rememb'ring, in the Fates, a time, when fire
Should to the battlements of heaven aspire,
And all his blazing worlds above should burn,
And all the inferior globe to cinders turn.
His dire artillery thus dismiss'd, he bent
His thoughts to some securer punishment:
Concludes to pour a wat'ry deluge down;
And, what he durst not burn, resolves to drown.
The Northern breath, that freezes floods, he
binds;

With all the race of cloud-dispelling winds:
The South he loos'd, who night and horror brings;
And fogs are shaken from his flaggy wings.
From his divided beard two streams he pours;
His head and rheumy eyes distil in showers.
The skies, from pole to pole, with peals resound:
And showers enlarg'd come pouring on the
ground.

Then clad in colours of a various dye,
Junonian Iris breeds a new supply
To feed the clouds: impetuous rain descends;
The bearded corn beneath the burthen bends:
Defrauded clowns deplore their perish'd grain;
And the long labours of the year are vain.

Nor from his patrimonial heaven alone
Is Jove content to pour his vengeance down:
Aid from his brother of the seas he craves,
To help him with auxiliary waves.
The wat'ry tyrant calls his brooks and floods,
Who roll from mossy caves, their moist abodes;
And with perpetual urns his palace fill:
To whom, in brief, he thus imparts his will.
Small exhortation needs; your powers employ:
And this bad world (so Jove requires) destroy.
Let loose the reins to all your wat'ry store:
Bear down the dams, and open every door.

The floods, by nature enemies to land,
And proudly swelling with their new command,
Remove the living stones that stopp'd their way,
And, gushing from their source, augment the sea.
Then, with his mace, their monarch struck the
ground:

With inward trembling earth receiv'd the wound;
And rising streams a ready passage found.
The expanded waters gather on the plain,
They float the fields, and overtop the grain;

floods,

Their houses fell upon their household gods.
The solid piles, too strongly built to fall,
High o'er their heads behold a wat'ry wall.
Now seas and earth were in confusion lost;
A world of waters, and without a coast.

One climbs a cliff; one in his boat is borne,
And ploughs above, where late he sow'd his corn.
Others o'er chimney tops and turrets row,
And drop their anchors on the meads below:
Or downward driven, they bruise the tender vine,
Or toss'd aloft, are knock'd against a pine.
And where of late the kids had cropp'd the

grass,

The monsters of the deep now take their place. Insulting Nereids on the cities ride,

And wondering dolphins o'er the palace glide. On leaves, and masts of mighty oaks, they browse;

And their broad fins entangle in the boughs.
The frighted wolf now swims among the sheep;
The yellow lion wanders in the deep:
His rapid force no longer helps the boar:
The stag swims faster than he ran before.
The fowls, long beating on their wings in vain,
Despair of land, and drop into the main.
Now hills and vales no more distinction know,
And levell'd nature lies oppress'd below.
The most of mortals perish in the flood,
The small remainder dies for want of food.
A mountain of stupendous height there stands
Betwixt the Athenian and Baotian lands,
The bound of fruitful fields, while fields they
were,

But then a field of waters did appear:
Parnassus is its name; whose forky rise
Mounts through the clouds, and mates the lofty
skies.

High on the summit of this dubious cliff,
Deucalion, wafted, moor'd his little skiff.
He with his wife were only left behind
Of perish'd man; they two were human kind.
The Mountain-nymphs and Themis they adore,
And from her oracles relief implore.
The most upright of mortal men was he;
The most sincere and holy woman, she.

When Jupiter, surveying earth from high,
Beheld it in a lake of water lie,

That, where so many millions lately liv'd,
But two, the best of either sex, surviv'd,
He loos'd the northern wind; fierce Boreas flies
To puff away the clouds, and purge the skies:
Serenely, while he blows, the vapours driven
Discover heaven to earth, and earth to heaven.
The billows fall, while Neptune lays his mace
On the rough sea, and smooths its furrow'd face.
Already Triton, at his call, appears
Above the waves; a Tyrian robe he wears;
And in his hand a crooked trumpet bears.
The sovereign bids him peaceful sounds inspire,
And give the waves the signal to retire.
The waters, listening to the trumpet's roar,
Obey the summons, and forsake the shore.

A thin circumference of land appears;
And Earth, but not at once, her visage rears,
And peeps upon the seas from upper grounds:
The streams, but just contain'd within their
bounds,

By slow degrees into their channels crawl;
And earth increases as the waters fall.
In longer time the tops of trees appear,
Which mud on their dishonour'd branches bear.
At length the world was all restor'd to view,
But desolate, and of a sickly hue:
Nature beheld herself, and stood aghast,
A dismal desert, and a silent waste.

TRANSFORMATION OF DAPHNE INTO A LAUREL. THE first and fairest of his loves was she Whom not blind Fortune, but the dire decree Of angry Cupid forced him to desire; Daphne her name, and Peneus was her sire. Swell'd with the pride that new success attends, He sees the stripling, while his bow he bends, And thus insults him: "Thou lascivious boy, Are arms like these for children to employ? Know, such achievements are my proper claim, Due to my vigour and unerring aim; Resistless are my shafts, and Python late, In such a feather'd death has found his fate. Take up thy torch (and lay my weapons by,) With that the feeble souls of lovers fry." To whom the son of Venus thus replied: "Phœbus, thy shafts are sure on all beside, But mine on Phœbus; mine the fame shall be Of all thy conquests, when I conquer thee."

He said, and soaring, swiftly wing'd his flight, Nor stopp'd, but on Parnassus' airy height. Two different shafts he from his quiver draws, One to repel desire, and one to cause. One shaft is pointed with refulgent gold, To bribe the love and make the lover bold; One blunt, and tipp'd with lead, whose base allay Provokes disdain, and drives desire away. The blunted bolt against the nymph he dress'd, But with the sharp transfix'd Apollo's breast.

The enamour'd deity pursues the chase; The scornful damsel shuns his loath'd embrace: In hunting beasts of prey her youth employs, And Phœbe rivals in her rural joys: With naked neck she goes, and shoulders bare, And with a fillet binds her flowing hair. By many suitors sought, she mocks their pains, And still her vow'd virginity maintains. On wilds and woods she fixes her desire; Nor knows what youth and kindly love inspire. Her father chides her oft: "Thou owest," says he, "A husband to thyself, a son to me.' She, like a crime, abhors the nuptial bed; She glows with blushes, and she hangs her head: Then, casting round his neck her tender arms, Soothes him with blandishments and filial charms.

"Give me, my lord," she said, "to live and die A spotless maid, without the marriage tie; 'Tis but a small request; I beg no more Than what Diana's father gave before." The good old sire was soften'd to consent; But said her wish would prove her punishment;

For so much youth and so much beauty join'd,
Opposed the state which her desires design'd.
The god of light, aspiring to her bed,
Hopes what he seeks, with flattering fancies
fed,

And is, by his own oracles, misled.
And as in empty fields the stubble burns,
Or nightly travellers, when day returns,
Their useless torches on dry hedges throw,
That catch the flames, and kindle all the row,
So burns the god, consuming in desire,
And feeding in his breast a fruitless fire:
Her well-turn'd neck he view'd (her neck was
bare,)

And on her shoulders her dishevell'd hair:
"O were it comb'd," said he, "with what a grace
Would every waving curl become her face!"
He view'd her eyes, like heavenly lamps that
shone,

He view'd her lips, too sweet to view alone.
Swift as the wind the damsel fled away,
Nor did for these alluring speeches stay.
"Stay, nymph," he cried, "I follow, not a foe.
Thus from the lion trips the trembling doe;
Thus from the wolf the frighten'd lamb removes,
And from pursuing falcons fearful doves:
Thou shunn'st a god, and shunn'st a god that
loves.

Ah, lest some thorn should pierce thy tender foot,
Or thou shouldst fall in flying my pursuit!
To sharp uneven ways thy steps decline;
Abate thy speed, and I will bate of mine.
Yet think from whom thou dost so rashly fly;
Nor basely born, nor shepherd's swain am I.
Perhaps thou know'st not my superior state;
And from that ignorance proceeds thy hate.
Me Claros, Delphos, Tenedos, obey;
These hands the Patareian sceptre sway:
The king of gods begot me: what shall be,
Or is, or ever was, in fate, I see:
Mine is the invention of the charming lyre:
Sweet notes, and heavenly numbers, I inspire:
Sure is my bow, unerring is my dart;

But ah! more deadly his who pierc'd my heart.
Medicine is mine; what herbs and simples grow
In fields and forests, all their powers I know,
And am the great physician call'd below.
Alas! that fields and forests can afford
No remedies to heal their love-sick lord:
To cure the pains of love no plant avails;
And his own physic the physician fails."

She heard not half, so furiously she flies;
And on her ear the imperfect accent dies.
Fear gave her wings; and, as she fled, the wind
Increasing, spread her flowing hair behind.

As when the impatient greyhound, slipp'd from
far,

Bounds o'er the glebe, to course the fearful hare,
She in her speed does all her safety lay;
And he with double speed pursues the prey;
O'erruns her at the sitting turn, and licks
His chaps in vain, and blows upon the flix:
She scapes, and for the neighb'ring covert strives,
And, gaining shelter, doubts if yet she lives.
If little things with great we may compare,
Such was the god, and such the flying fair;

She, urg'd by fear, her feet did swiftly move,
But he more swiftly, who was urged by love.
He gathers ground upon her in the chase;
Now breathes upon her hair, with nearer pace;
And just is fastening on the wish'd embrace.
The nymph grew pale, and, in a mortal fright,
Spent with the labour of so long a flight,
And now despairing, cast a mournful look
Upon the streams of her paternal brook:
"O help," she cried, "in this extremest need!
If water-gods are deities indeed;

Gape earth, and this unhappy wretch entomb; Or change that form, whence all my sorrows come."

Scarce had she finish'd, when her feet she found
Benumb'd with cold, and fasten'd to the ground;
A filmy rind about her body grows;

Her hair to leaves, her arms extend to boughs:
The nymph is all into a laurel gone;
The smoothness of her skin remains alone.
Yet Phoebus loves her still, and, casting round
Her bole his arms, some little warmth he found.
The tree still panted in the unfinish'd part,
Not wholly vegetive, and heaved her heart.
He fix'd his lips upon the trembling rind;
It swerved aside, and his embrace declined:
To whom the god, "Because thou canst not be
My mistress, I espouse thee for my tree:
Be thou the prize of honour and renown;
The deathless poet, and the poem, crown:
Thou shalt the Roman festivals adorn,
And, after poets, be by victors worn:
Thou shalt returning Cæsar's triumph grace,
When pomps shall in a long procession pass;
Wreath'd on the post before his palace wait,
And be the sacred guardian of the gate:
Secure from thunder, and unharm'd by Jove;
Unfading as the immortal powers above:
And as the locks of Phoebus are unshorn,
So shall perpetual green thy boughs adorn."
The grateful tree was pleased with what he
said,

And shook the shady honours of her head.

10 TRANSFORMED INTO A cow. ON leaves of trees and bitter herbs she fed: Heaven was her canopy; bare earth her bed: So hardly lodged:-and to digest her food, She drank from troubled streams, defiled with mud.

Her woeful story fain she would have told,
With hands upheld; but had no hands to hold.
Her head to her ungentle keeper bow'd,
She strove to speak; she spoke not, but she low'd:
Affrighted with the noise, she look'd around,
And seem'd to inquire the author of the sound.
Once on the banks where often she had play'd
(Her father's banks) she came, and there survey'd
Her alter'd visage, and her branching head;
And, starting, from herself she would have fled.
Her fellow-nymphs, familiar to her eyes,
Beheld, but knew her not in this disguise;
E'en Inachus himself was ignorant,
And in his daughter did his daughter want.
She follow'd where her fellows went, as she
Were still a partner of the company:

They stroke her neck; the gentle heifer stands,
And her neck offers to their stroking hands.
Her father gave her grass; the grass she took,
And lick'd his palms, and cast a piteous look,
And in the language of her eyes she spoke.
She would have told her name, and ask'd relief,
But, wanting words, in tears she tells her grief;
Which, with her foot she makes him understand;
And prints the name of Io in the sand.

"Ah wretched me!" her mournful father cried; "She with a sigh to wretched me replied." About her milk-white neck his arms he threw, And wept.

Book VIII.

STORY OF BAUCIS AND PHILEMON.

THEN Lelex rose, an old experienced man, And thus, with sober gravity, began:

Heaven's power is infinite: earth, air, and sea, The manufactur'd mass, the making power obey: By proof to clear your doubt; in Phrygian ground Two neighbouring trees, with walls encompass'd round,

Stand on a moderate rise, with wonder shown;
One a hard oak, a softer linden one:

I saw the place, and them, by Pittheus sent
To Phrygian realms, my grandsire's government.
Not far from thence is seen a lake, the haunt
Of coots, and of the fishing cormorant :
Here Jove with Hermes came; but in disguise
Of mortal men conceal'd their deities;
One laid aside his thunder, one his rod,
And many toilsome steps together trod :
For harbour at a thousand doors they knock'd;
Not one of all the thousand but was lock'd.
At last a hospitable house they found,
A homely shed; the roof, not far from ground,
Was thatch'd, with reeds and straw together
bound.

There Baucis and Philemon lived, and there
Had lived long married, and a happy pair:
Now old in love, though little was their store,
Inured to want, their poverty they bore,
Nor aim'd at wealth, professing to be poor.
For master or for servant here to call
Were all alike, where only two were all.
Command was none, where equal love was paid,
Or rather both commanded, both obey'd.

"From lofty roofs the gods repulsed before,
Now stooping, enter'd through the little door:
The man (their hearty welcome first express'd)
A common settle drew for either guest,
Inviting each his weary limbs to rest.
But ere they sat, officious Baucis lays
Two cushions stuff'd with straw, the seat to raise;
Coarse, but the best she had; then rakes the load
Of ashes from the hearth, and spreads abroad
The living coals; and, lest they should expire,
With leaves and bark she feeds her infant fire.
It smokes; and then with trembling breath she
blows,

Till in a cheerful blaze the flames arose.
With brushwood and with chips she strengthens

these,

And adds at last the boughs of rotten trees.

relate

These past adventures at the temple gate,
Old Baucis is by old Philemon seen

Sprouting with sudden leaves of sprightly green:
Old Baucis look'd where old Philemon stood,
And saw his lengthen'd arms a sprouting wood:
New roots their fasten'd feet begin to bind,
Their bodies stiffen in a rising rind:
Then, ere the bark above their shoulders grew,
They give and take at once their last adieu.
'At once farewell, O faithful spouse,' they said;
At once the encroaching rinds their closing lips
invade.

E'en yet, an ancient Tyanæan shows
A spreading oak, that near a linden grows;
The neighbourhood confirm the prodigy,
Grave men, not vain of tongue, or like to lie.
I saw myself the garlands on their boughs,
And tablets hung for gifts of granted vows;
And offering fresher up, with pious prayer,
'The good,' said I, 'are God's peculiar care,
And such as honour Heaven, shall heavenly
honour share.'"

Book X.

PYGMALION AND HIS STATUE.

PYGMALION, loathing their lascivious life,* Abhorr'd all womankind, but most a wife; So single chose to live, and shunn'd to wed, Well pleased to want a consort of his bed; Yet fearing idleness, the nurse of ill, In sculpture exercised his happy skill, And carved in ivory such a maid, so fair, As Nature could not with his art compare, Were she to work; but, in her own defence, Must take her pattern here, and copy hence. Pleased with his idol, he commends, admires, Adores, and last, the thing adored desires: A very virgin in her face was seen, And had she moved, a living maid had been:

One would have thought she could have stirr'd,

but strove

For thrice in cheerful flames ascends the fire.
The youth, returning to his mistress, hies,
And, impudent in hope, with ardent eyes,
And beating breast, by the dear statue lies.
He kisses her white lips, renews the bliss,
And looks, and thinks they redden at the kiss;
He thought them warm before, nor longer stays,
But next his hand on the hard substance lays;
Hard as it was, beginning to relent,

It seem'd the block beneath his fingers bent:
He felt again-his fingers made a print-
'Twas flesh, but flesh so firm, it rose against the
dint:

The pleasing task he fails not to renew;
Soft, and more soft, at every touch it grew;
Like pliant wax, when chafing hands reduce
The former mass to form, and frame for use.
He would believe, but yet is still in pain,
And tries his argument of sense again,
Presses the pulse, and feels the leaping vein:
Convinced, o'erjoyed, his studied thanks and
praise,

To her who made the miracle, he pays:
Then lips to lips he join'd; now freed from fear,
He found the savour of the kiss sincere.
At this the waken'd image oped her eyes,
And view'd at once the light and lover with
surprise.

The goddess, present at the match she made,
So bless'd the bed, such fruitfulness convey'd,
That ere ten months had sharpen'd either horn,
To crown their bliss, a lovely boy was born:
Paphos his name, who, grown to manhood,
wall'd

The city Paphos, from the founder call'd.

Book XI.

THE HOUSE OF SLEEP.

DEEP in a cavern dwells the drowsy god,
Nor setting, visits, nor the lightsome noon:
Whose gloomy mansion, nor the rising sun,
But lazy vapours round the region fly,
Perpetual twilight, and a doubtful sky;
No crowing cock does there his wings display,
Nor with his horny bill provoke the day,
Nor watchful dogs, nor the more wakeful geese,
Disturb with nightly noise the sacred peace,
Nor beast of nature, nor the tame are nigh,
Nor trees with tempests rock'd, nor human cry,
But safe repose,
without an air of breath,
Dwells here, and a dumb quiet next to death.
An arm of Lethe, with a gentle flow.
The palace moats, and o'er the pebbles creeps,
Arising upwards from the rock below,
And with soft murmurs calls the coming sleeps.
Around its entry nodding poppies grow,
And all cool simples that sweet rest bestow;
Night from the plants their sleepy virtue drains,

And, passing, sheds it on the silent plains.
No door there was, the unguarded house to keep,
On creaking hinges turn'd, to break his sleep.
But in the gloomy court was raised a bed,
Stuff'd with black plumes, and on an ebon 'sted;