In rifing blushes ftill fresh beauties rofe;
The funny fide of fruit fuch blushes shows,

And fuch the moon, when all her filver white
Turns in eclipses to a ruddy light.

The nymph ftill begs, if not a nobler blifs,
A cold falute at least, a fifter's kifs:
And now prepares to take the lovely boy
Between her arms. He, innocently coy,
Replies, "Or leave me to myself alone,
"You rude uncivil nymph, or I'll be

gone.
"Fair ftranger then, fays fhe, it shall be so:
And, for the fear'd his threats, fhe feign'd to go;
But hid within a covert's neighb'ring green,
She kept him still in fight, herself unfeen.
The boy now fancies all the danger o'er,
And innocently fports about the fhore,
Playful and wanton to the stream he trips,
And dips his foot, and fhivers, as he dips.
The coolnefs pleas'd him, and with eager hafte
His airy garments on the banks he caft;
His godlike features, and his heav'nly hue,
And all his beauties were expos'd to view.

His naked limbs the nymph with rapture fpies, While hotter paffions in her bofom rife,

Flush in her cheeks, and sparkle in her eyes.

She longs, fhe burns to clasp him in her arms,

And looks and fighs, and kindles at his charms.

Now all undreft upon the banks he stood, And clap'd bis fides, and leap'd into the flood: His lovely limbs the filver waves divide,

His limbs appear more lovely through the tide; As lilies fhut within a crystal case,

Receive a gloffy luftre from the glass,

"He's mine, he's all my own," the Naïad cries,
And flings off all, and after him she flies.
And now fhe faftens on him as he swims,

And holds him clofe, and wraps about his limbs.
The more the boy refifted, and was coy,
The more she clafp'd, and kist the struggling boy.
So when the wrigling fnake is fnatch'd on high
In eagle's claws, and hiffes in the sky,

Around the foe his twirling tail he flings,

And twifts her legs, and writhes about her wings.

The

The restless boy ftill obftinately ftrove To free himself, and ftill refus'd her love. Amidft his limbs fhe kept her limbs intwin'd,

"And why, coy youth, fhe cries, why thus " unkind!

"Oh may the Gods thus keep us ever join'd! "Oh may we never, never part again!

in vain:

So pray'd the nymph, nor did fhe pray
For now fhe finds him, as his limbs fhe preft,
Grow nearer ftill, and nearer to her breast;
"Till, piercing each the other's flesh, they run
Together, and incorporate in one:

Laft in one face are both their faces join'd,
As when the stock and grafted twig combin'd
Shoot up the fame, and wear a common rind:
Both bodies in a fingle body mix,

A fingle body with a double sex.

The boy, thus loft in woman, now survey'd The river's guilty stream, and thus he pray'd, (He pray'd, but wonder'd at his fofter tone, Surpris'd to hear a voice but half his own)

VOL. I.

T

You

You parent
Gods, whofe heav'nly names I bear,
Hear your Hermaphrodite, and grant my pray❜r;

Oh grant, that whomfoe'er these streams contain,
If man he enter'd, he may rife again

Supple, unfinew'd, and but half a man!

The heav'nly parents answer'd, from on high, Their two-fhap'd son, the double votary; Then gave a fecret virtue to the flood,

And ting'd its fource to make his wishes good.

NOTES

NOTE S

ON

Some of the foregoing STORIES in OVID's Metamorphofes.

On the Story of PHAETON, page 171.

HE ftory of Phaeton is told with a greater

Tair of majefty and grandeur than any other

in all Ovid. It is indeed the most important fubject he treats of, except the deluge, and I cannot but believe that this is the conflagration he hints at in the first book;

Effe quoque in fatis reminifcitur affore tempus
Quo mare, quo tellus, Correptaque Regia cæli
Ardeat, et mundi moles operofa labcret.

(though the learned apply those verses to the future burning of the world) for it fully answers that defcription, if the

Cali miferere tui, circumfpice utrumque,

Fumat uterque polus

T 2

Fumat