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,
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: 495
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.
ESACUS TRANSFORMED INTO A COR-
MORANT.
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 5
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 Alyxothoe, 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 scap'd by death her 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. 45
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.
THE TWELFTH BOOK OF OVID'S METAMORPHOSES,
CONNEXION TO THE END OF THE ELEVENTH BOOK.
Esacus, 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 Esacus, 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,
Which, for the Spartan queen, the Grecians drew Το avenge the rape, and Asia to subdue.
A thousand ships were mann'd, to sail the sea : Nor had their just resentments found delay, Had not the winds and waves oppos'd their way. At Aulis, with united powers, they meet; But there, cross winds or calms detain'd the fleet. Now, while they raise an altar on the shore, And Jove with solemn sacrifice adore;
A boding sign the priests and people see:
A snake of size immense ascends a tree,
And in a leafy summit spied a nest,
Which, o'er the callow young, a sparrow press'd.
Eight were the birds unfledg'd; their mother flew,
And hover'd round her care; but still in view:
Till the fierce reptile first devour'd the brood;
Then seiz❜d the fluttering dam, and drank her blood.
This dire ostent the fearful people view;
Calchas alone, by Phoebus taught, foreknew
What heaven decreed: and with a smiling glance,
Thus gratulates to Greece her happy chance.
O Argives, we shall conquer; Troy is ours,
But long delays shall first afflict our powers:
Nine years of labour the nine birds portend;
The tenth shall in the town's destruction end.
The serpent, who his maw obscene had fill'd,
The branches in his curl'd embraces held:
But as in spires he stood, he turn'd to stone:
The stony snake retain'd the figure still his own.
Yet not for this the wind-bound navy weigh'd;
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