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, 4€5
Her hair, her vest, and stooping to the sands,
About his neck she cast 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 neighb'ring mole she strode,
(Rais'd 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 feather'd arms embrac'd the dead:
Then flickering to his pallid lips, she strove
To print a kiss, the last essay of love:
Whether the vital touch reviv'd the dead,
Or that the moving waters rais'd 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, 490
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 compress'd
Seven days sits brooding on her floating nest: 195
A wint❜ry 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.
ÆSACUS TRANSFORMED INTO A CORMORANT,
FROM THE ELEVENTH BOOK OF OVID'S METAMORPHOSES.
THESE Some old man sees wanton in the air,
And praises the unhappy constant pair.
Then to his friend the long-neck'd cormorant shows,
The former tale reviving others' 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 rivall'd 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,
Lov'd the lone hills, and simple rural sport,
And seldom to the city would resort.
Yet he no rustic clownishness profess'd,
Nor was soft love a stranger to his breast:
The youth had long the nymph Hesperia woo'd,
Oft through the thicket, or the mead pursu'd:
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,
Pursu'd by hawks, so swift regain the lake.
As fast he follow'd in the hot career;
Desire the lover wing'd, the virgin fear.
A snake unseen now pierc'd her heedless foot;
Quick through the veins the venom'd juices shoot :
She fell, and 'scaped by death his fierce pursuit.
Her lifeless body, frighted, he embrac❜d,
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 curs'd than he !
He gave
the wound; the cause was given by me.
Yet none shall say, that unreveng❜d you died.
He spoke; then climb'd a cliff's o'erhanging side,
And, resolute, leap'd on the foaming tide.
Tethys receiv'd him gently on the wave;
The death he sought denied, and feathers gave,
Debarr'd the surest remedy of grief,
And forc'd to live, he curst the unask'd relief.
Then on his airy pinions upward flies,
And at a second fall successless tries;
The downy plume a quick descent denies.
Enrag'd, 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 prey'd.
Still near the sounding deep he lives; his name
From frequent diving and emerging came.
TWELFTH BOOK OF OVID'S METAMORPHOSES,
CONNEXION TO THE END OF THE ELEVENTH BOOK.
Æsacus, the son of Priam, loving a country life, forsakes the court living obscurely, he falls in love with a nymph; who, flying from him, was killed by a serpent; for grief of this, he would have drowned himself; but, by the pity of the gods, is turned into a Cormorant. Priam, not hearing of Æsacus, believes him to be dead, and raises a tomb to preserve his memory. By this transition, which is one of the finest of all Ovid, the poet naturally falls into the story of the Trojan war, which is summed up, in the present book, but so very briefly, in many places, that Ovid seems more short than Virgil, contrary to his usual style. Yet the House of Fame, which is here described, is one of the most beautiful pieces in the whole Metamorphoses. The fight of Achilles and Cygnus, and the fray betwixt the Lapithæ and Centaurs, yield to no other part of this poet and particularly the loves and death of Cyllarus and Hylonome, the male and female Centaur, are wonderfully moving.
PRIAM, to whom the story was unknown,
As dead, deplor'd his metamorphos'd son:
A cenotaph his name and title kept,
And Hector round the tomb, with all his brothers,
This pious office Paris did not share;
Absent alone, and author of the war,
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