No wilful crime this heavy vengeance bred;
In mutual Innocence our lives we led:
If this be falfe, let thefe new greens decay,
Let founding axes lop my limbs away,

And crackling flames on all my honours prey. 75
But from my branching arms this infant bear,
Let fome kind nurse supply a mother's care:
And to his mother let him oft be led,

85

Sport in her fhades, and in her shades be fed;
Teach him, when his first infant voice fhall frame 80
Imperfect words, and lifp his mother's name,
To hail this tree; and fay with weeping eyes,
Within this plant my hapless parent lies:
And when in youth he feeks the fhady woods,
Oh, let him fly the cryftal lakes and floods,
Nor touch the fatal flow'rs; but, warn'd by me,
Believe a Goddess fhrin'd in ev'ry tree.
My fire, my fifter, and my spouse farewell!
If in your breafts or love, or pity dwell,
Protect your plant, nor let my branches feel
The browzing cattle or the piercing steel.
Farewell! and fince I cannot bend to join
My lips to yours, advance at least to mine.
My fon, thy mother's parting kiss receive,
While yet thy mother has a kifs to give.
I can no more; the creeping rind invades
My clofing lips, and hides my head in shades:

90

95

Colla liber ferpit; fummoque cacumine condor.
Ex oculis removete manus: fine munere vestro
Contegat inductus morientia lumina cortex.
Defierant fimul ora loqui, fimul effe: diuque
Corpore mutato rami caluere recentes.

100

Remove your
Without their aid to feal these dying eyes.

hands: the bark fhall foon fuffice

She ceas'd at once to speak, and ceas'd to be;100 And all the nymph was loft within the tree; Yet latent life thro' her new branches reign'd, And long the plant a human heat retain'd.

VOL. II.

VERTUMNUS

AND

POMONA:

From the FOURTEENTH BOOK of

OVID'S METAMORPHOSES.