His lustre lost, and every living grace,
Yet I retained the features of his face:
Though with pale cheeks, wet beard, and dropping hair, None but my Ceyx could appear so fair;
I would have strained him with a strict embrace, But through my arms he slipt, and vanished from the place;
There, even just there he stood;-and as she spoke,
Where last the spectre was, she cast her look;
Fain would she hope, and gazed upon the ground,
If any printed footsteps might be found;
Then sighed, and said;-This I too well foreknew,
And my prophetic fear presaged too true;
'Twas what I begged, when with a bleeding heart
I took my leave, and suffered thee to part,
Or I to go along, or thou to stay,
Never, ah never to divide our way!
Happier for me, that, all our hours assigned,
Together we had lived, even not in death disjoined!
So had my Ceyx still been living here,
Or with my Ceyx I had perished there;
Now I die absent, in the vast profound,
And me without myself the seas have drowned:
The storms were not so cruel; should I strive
To lengthen life, and such a grief survive!
But neither will I strive, nor wretched thee
In death forsake, but keep thee company.
If not one common sepulchre contains
Our bodies, or one urn our last remains,
Yet Ceyx and Alcyone shall join,
Their names remembered in one common line.-
No farther voice her mighty grief affords,
For sighs come rushing in betwixt her words,
And stopt her tongue; but what her tongue denied,
Soft tears, and groans, and dumb complaints supplied.
'Twas morning; to the port she takes her way,
And stands upon the margin
of the sea;
That place, that very spot of ground she sought,
Or thither by her destiny was brought,
Where last he stood; and while she sadly said,
'Twas here he left me, lingering here, delayed
His parting kiss, and there his anchors weighed.
Thus speaking, while her thoughts past actions trace,
And call to mind, admonished by the place,
Sharp at her utmost ken she cast her eyes,
And somewhat floating from afar descries;
It seemed a corpse adrift, to distant sight,
But at a distance who could judge aright?
It wafted nearer yet, and then she knew,
That what before she but surmised was true;
A corpse it was, but whose it was, unknown,
Yet moved, howe'er, she made the case her own;
Took the bad omen of a shipwrecked man,
As for a stranger wept, and thus began
Poor wretch, on stormy seas to lose thy life,
Unhappy thou, but more thy widowed wife!
At this she paused; for now the flowing tide
Had brought the body nearer to the side:
The more she looks, the more her fears increase
At nearer sight, and she's herself the less:
Now driven ashore, and at her feet it lies;
She knows too much, in knowing whom she sees,-
Her husband's corpse; at this she loudly shrieks,
'Tis he, 'tis he, she cries, and tears her cheeks,
Her hair, her vest; and, stooping to the sands,
About his neck she casts her trembling hands.
And is it thus, O dearer than my life,
Thus, thus return'st thou to thy longing wife!—
She said, and to the neighbouring mole she strode,
Raised there to break the incursions of the flood;
Headlong from hence to plunge herself she springs,
But shoots along supported on her wings;
A bird new-made about the banks she plies,
Not far from shore, and short excursions tries;
Nor seeks in air her humble flight to raise,
Content to skim the surface of the seas;
Her bill, though slender, sends a creaking noise,
And imitates a lamentable voice;
Now lighting where the bloodless body lies,
She with a funeral note renews her cries.
At all her stretch her little wings she spread,
And with her feathered arms embraced the dead;
Then flickering to his pallid lips, she strove
To print a kiss, the last essay of love;
Whether the vital touch revived the dead,
Or that the moving waters raised his head
To meet the kiss, the vulgar doubt alone,
For sure a present miracle was shown.
The gods their shapes to winter-birds translate,
But both obnoxious to their former fate.
Their conjugal affection still is tied,
And still the mournful race is multiplied;
They bill, they tread; Alcyone compressed,
Seven days sits brooding on her floating nest,
A wintery queen; her sire at length is kind,
Calms every storm, and hushes every wind;
Prepares his empire for his daughter's ease,
And for his hatching nephews smooths the seas.
TRANSFORMED INTO A CORMORANT.
FROM THE ELEVENTH BOOK OF
THESE Some old man sees wanton in the air,
And praises the unhappy constant pair;
Then to his friend the long-necked Cormorant shows,
The former tale reviving other woes :
That sable bird, he cries, which cuts the flood
With slender legs, was once of royal blood;
His ancestors from mighty Tros proceed,
The brave Laomedon and Ganymede,
Whose beauty tempted Jove to steal the boy,
And Priam, hapless prince! who fell with Troy;
Himself was Hector's brother, and, had fate
But given this hopeful youth a longer date,
Perhaps had rivalled warlike Hector's worth,
Though on the mother's side of meaner birth;
Fair Alyxothoé, a country maid,
Bare Esacus by stealth in Ida's shade.
He fled the noisy town, and pompous court,
Loved the lone hills, and simple rural sport,
And seldom to the city would resort.
Yet he no rustic clownishness profest,
Nor was soft love a stranger to his breast;
The youth had long the nymph Hesperio wooed,
Oft through the thicket, or the mead, pursued.
Her haply on her father's bank he spied,
While fearless she her silver tresses dried;
Away she fled; not stags with half such speed,
Before the prowling wolf, scud o'er the mead;
Not ducks, when they the safer flood forsake,
Pursued by hawks, so swift regain the lake,
As fast he followed in the hot career;
Desire the lover winged, the virgin fear.
A snake unseen now pierced her heedless foot,
Quick through the veins the venomed juices shoot;
She fell, and 'scaped by death his fierce pursuit.
Her lifeless body, frighted, he embraced,
And cried. --Not this i dreaded, but thy haste;
O had my love been less, or less thy fear!
The victory thus bought is far too dear.
Accursed snake! yet I more cursed than he!
He gave the wound; the cause was given by me.
Yet none shall say, that unrevenged you died.-
He spoke; then climbed a cliff's o'er-hanging side,
And, resolute, leaped on the foaming tide.
Tethys received him gently on the wave;
The death he sought denied, and feathers gave,
Debarred the surest remedy of grief,
And forced to live, he curst the unasked relief;
Then on his airy pinions upward flies,
And at a second fall successless tries,
The downy plume a quick descent denies.
Enraged, he often dives beneath the wave,
And there in vain expects to find a grave.
His ceaseless sorrow for the unhappy maid
Meager'd his look, and on his spirits preyed.
Still near the sounding deep he lives; his name
From frequent diving and emerging came.
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