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Matrons and maidens beat their breasts and tear
Their habits, and root up their scatter'd hair :
The wretched father, father now no more,
With sorrow sunk, lies prostrate on the floor;
Deforms his hoary locks with dust obscene,
And curses age, and loaths a life prolong'd with
By steel her stubborn soul his mother freed, [pain.
And punish'd on herself her impious deed.
Had I a hundred tongues, a wit so large
As could their hundred offices discharge;
Had Phoebus all his Helicon bestow'd
In all the streams, inspiring all the god;
Those tongues, that wit, those streams, that god, in
Would offer to describe his sisters' pain:

[vain

They beat their breasts with many a bruising blow,
Till they turn livid and corrupt the snow:
The corps they cherish, while the corps remains,
And exercise and rub with fruitless pains;
And when to funeral flames 'tis borne away,
They kiss the bed on which the body lay:
And when those funeral flames no longer burn,
(The dust compos'd within a pious urn)
Ev'n in that urn their brother they confess,
And hug it in their arms, and to their bosoms press.
His tomb is rais'd; then, stretch'd along the
ground,

Those living monuments his tomb surround:
Ev'n to his name, inscrib'd, their tears they pay,
Till tears and kisses wear his name away.
But Cynthia now had all her fury spent,
Not with less ruin than a race content;
Excepting Gorgè, perish'd all the seed,
And her whom Heaven for Hercules decreed,

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Satiate at last, no longer she pursued

The weeping sisters; but with wings endued,
And horny beaks, and sent to flit in air,

[pair.

They yearly round the tomb in feather'd flocks re

THE TRANSFORMATION OF THE NAIADS.

BY VERNON.

Theseus, meanwhile, acquitting well his share In the bold chase, confederate like a war, To Athens' lofty towers his march ordain'd, By Pallas lov'd, and where Erectheus reign'd. But Achelous stop'd him on the way,

By rains a deluge, and constrain'd his stay.

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' O fam'd for glorious deeds, and great by blood, Rest here,' says he, nor trust the rapid flood: It solid oaks has from its margin tore,

And rocky fragments down its current bore;
The murmur hoarse, and terrible the roar.
Oft have I seen herds with their sheltering fold
Forc'd from the banks, and in the torrent roll'd;
Nor strength the bulky steer from ruin freed,
Nor matchless swiftness sav'd the racing steed.
In cataracts when the dissolving snow

Falls from the hills, and floods the plains below;
Toss'd by the eddies with a giddy round,
Strong youths are in the sucking whirlpools drown'd.
"Tis best with me in safety to abide,

Till usual bounds restrain the ebbing tide,
And the low waters in their channel glide.
Theseus, persuaded, in compliance bow'd;
'So kind an offer, and advice so good,
O Achelous! cannot be refus'd;

I'll use them both,' said he;--and both he us'd.

The grot he enter'd, pumice built the hall, And tophi made the rustic of the wall; The floor, soft moss, an humid carpet spread, And various shells the chequer'd roof inlaid. "Twas now the hour when the declining sun Two thirds had of his daily journey run; At the spread table Theseus took his place, Next his companions in the daring chase; Pirithous here, there elder Lelex lay, His locks betraying age with sprinkled grey. Acharnia's river-god dispos'd the rest, Grac'd with the equal honour of the feast, Elate with joy, and proud of such a guest. The nymphs were waiters, and with naked feet In order serv'd the courses of the meat.

The banquet done, delicious wine they brought; Of one transparent gem the cup was wrought. Then the great hero of this gallant train, Surveying far the prospect of the main; 'What is that land,' says he,' the waves embrace? (And with his finger pointed at the place ;) Is it one parted isle which stands alone? How nam'd? and yet methinks it seems not one.' To whom the watery god made this reply: ''Tis not one isle, but five; distinct they lie; 'Tis distance which deceives the cheated eye. But, that Diana's act may seem less strange, These once proud naiads were, before their change. 'Twas on a day more solemn than the rest, Ten bullocks slain, a sacrificial feast: The rural gods of all the region near

They bid to dance, and taste the hallow'd cheer. Me they forgot: affronted with the slight,

My rage and stream swell'd to the greatest height;

And with the torrent of my flooding store,

Large woods from woods, and fields from fields I

tore.

The guilty nymphs, oh! then, remembering me,
I, with their country, wash'd into the sea;
And joining waters with the social main,

Rent the gross land, and split the firm champaign.
Since, the Echinades, remote from shore,
Are view'd as many isles, as nymphs before.'

PERIMELE TURNED INTO AN ISLAND.

'But yonder far, lo! yonder does appear
An isle, a part to me for ever dear;
From that (it sailors Perimele name)
I, doting, forc'd by rape a virgin's fame.
Hippodamas's passion grew so strong,

Gall'd with the' abuse, and fretted at the wrong,
He cast his pregnant daughter from a rock;
I spread my waves beneath, and broke the shock:
And as her swimming weight my stream convey'd,
I sued for help divine, and thus I pray'd:
"O powerful Thou! whose trident does command
The realm of waters which surround the land;
We sacred rivers, wheresoe'er begun,
End in thy lot, and to thy empire run.
With favour hear, and help with present aid;
Her whom I bear 'twas guilty I betray'd.
Yet if her father had been just or mild,
He would have been less impious to his child;
In her, have pitied force in the abuse;
In me, admitted love for my excuse.
O let relief for her hard case be found,
Her, whom paternal rage expell'd from ground,
Her, whom paternal rage relentless drown'd.

Grant her some place, or change her to a place Which I may ever clasp with my embrace."

'His nodding head the sea's great ruler bent,
And all his waters shook with his assent. [tress'd,
The nymph still swam, though with the fright dis-
I felt her heart leap trembling in her breast;
But hardening soon, whilst I her pulse explore,
A crusting earth cas'd her stiff body o'er;
And as accretions of new-cleaving soil
Enlarg❜d the mass, the nymph became an isle.'

THE STORY OF BAUCIS AND PHILEMON.
BY DRYDEN.

Thus Acheloüs ends :-his audience hear
With admiration, and admiring fear

The powers of heav'n; except Ixion's son,
Who laugh'd at all the gods, believ'd in none:
He shook his impious head, and thus replies ;-
'These legends are no more than pious lies:
You attribute too much to heavenly sway,
To think they give us forms, and take away.'
The rest, of better minds, their sense declar'd
Against this doctrine, and with horror heard.
Then Lelex rose, an old experienc'd man,
And thus with sober gravity began :

'Heaven's pow'r is infinite: earth, air, and sea, The manufacture 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,

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