At plays you ogle, at the ring you bow;
Ev'n churches are no fanctuaries now;
There golden idols all your vows receive;
She is no goddess who has nought to give.
Oh may once more the happy age appear,
When words were artless, and the thoughts sincere ;
When gold and grandeur were unenvy'd things,
And courts lefs coveted than groves and springs.
Love then shall only mourn when Truth complains,.
And constancy feel transport in its chains ;
Sighs with success their own soft anguish tell,
And eyes shall utter what the lips conceal:
Virtue again to its bright station climb,
And beauty fear no enemy but time :
The fair shall listen to desert alone,
And every Lucia find a Cato's son.
TRANSFORMATION OF SCYLLA.
NOW
OW Glaucus, with a lover's haste, bounds o'er
The swelling waves, and seeks the Latian fhore.
Messena, Rhegium, and the barren coast
Of flaming Ætna, to his right are lost :
At length he gains the Tyrrhene seas, and views
The hills where baneful philtres Circe brews ;
Monsters in various forms around her press;
As thus the God salutes the Sorceress :
O Circe, be indulgent to my grief,
And give a love-fick deity relief.
Too well the mighty power of plants I know,
To those my figure and new fate I owe.
Against Mellena, on th’ Ausonian coast,
I Scylla view'd, and from that hour was lost.
In tenderest sounds I sued; but still the fair
Was deaf to vows, and pitiless to prayer.
If numbers can avail, exert their power;
Or energy of plarits, if plants have more.
I ask no cure; let but the virgin pine
With dying pangs, or agonies, like mine.
No longer Circe could her fame disguise,
But to the suppliant God Marine, replies :
When maids are coy, have manlier aims in view;
Leave those that fly; But those that like, pursue.
If love can be by kind compliance won ;
See, at your feet, the Daughter of the Sun.
Sooner, said Glaucus, shall the ash remove
From mountains, and the swelling surges love;
Or humble sea-weed to the hills repair ;
E’er I think any but my Scylla fair.
Straight Circe reddens with a guilty shame,
And rows revenge for her rejected flame..
Fierce liking oft'a spite as fierce creates ;
For kve refus’d, without aversion, hates.
To hurt her hapless rival, she proceeds ;
And, by the fall of Scylla, Glaucus bleeds..
Some fascinating beverage now she brews,
Compos’d of deadly drugs and baneful juice.
At Rhegium lhe arrives ; the ocean braves,
And treads with unwet feet the boiling waves.
l'pon the beach a winding bay there lies,
Shelter'd from feas, and shaded from the skies :
This station Scylla chose; a soft retreat
From chilling winds, and raging Cancer's heat..
The vengeful Sorceress visits this recess;
Her charm infuses, and infects the place.
Soon as the nymph wades in, her nether parts
Turn into dogs; then at herself the starts.
5
A ghastly
A ghastly horror in her eyes appears ;
But
yet
she knows not who it is she fears;
In vain the offers from herself to run,
And drags about her what she strives to fhun.
Oppress’d with grief the pitying God appears,
And swells the rising surges with his tears;
From the distressed Sorceress he flies;
Her art reviles, and her address denies :
Whilst hapless Scylla, chang'd to rocks, decrees
Destruction to those barks, that beat the seas.
VOYAGE OF ÆNE AS continued..
Here bulg'd the pride of fam’d Ulysses' feet ;
But good Æneas ’scap'd the fate he met.
As to the Latian shore the Trojan stood,
And cut with well-tim’d oars the foaming flood :.
He weather'd fell Charybdis : but ere-long
The skies were darken’d, and the tempest strong.
Then to the Libyan coast he stretches o’er;
And makes at length the Carthaginian fhore.
Here Dido, with an hospitable care,
Into her heart receives the wanderer.
Froin her kind arms th’ungrateful hero flies ;
The injur'd queen looks on with dying eyes,
Then to her folly falls a sacrifice.
Æneas now sets fail, and, plying, gains
Fair Eryx, where his friend Aceftes reigns :
First to his fire does funeral rites decree,
Then gives the signal next, and stands to sea;
Out-runs the islands where volcano's roar;
Gets clear of Syrens, and their faithless shore :
But loses Palinurus in the way ;
Then makes Inarime, and Prochyta.
TRANSFORMATION OF CERCOPIANS
The gallies now by Pythecusa pass ;
The name is from the natives of the place.
The Father of the Gods, detesting lies,
Oft', with abhorrence, heard their perjuries.
Tl'abandon'd race, transform’d to beasts, began
To mimic the impertinence of man.
Flat-nos'd, and furrow'd ; with grimace they grin;
And look, to what they were, tuo near akin:
Merry in make, and busy to no end ;
This moment they divert, the next offend :
So much this species of their paft retains ;
Though lost the language, yet the noise remains.
ÆNEAS DESCENDS TO HELL
Now, on his right, he leaves Parthenope :
His left, Misenus jutting in the sea :
Arrives at Cuma, and with awe survey'd
The grotto of the venerable maid;
|