FROM THE ELEVENTH BOOK OF OVID'S METAMORPHOSES.
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hese 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 floodWith 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 fateBut 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 Æsacus 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 maidMeager'd his look, and on his spirits preyed.Still near the sounding deep he lives; his nameFrom frequent diving and emerging came.
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