uld Apollo's self the city raise,
And line it round with walls of brass,
Thrice should my favourite Greeks his works confound,
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And hew the shining fabric to the ground;
Thrice should her captive dames to Greece return,
And their dead sons and slaughtered husbands mourn.'
But hold, my Muse, forbear thy towering flight,
Nor bring the secrets of the gods to light:
In vain would thy presumptuous verse
The immortal rhetoric rehearse;
The mighty strains, in lyric numbers bound,
Forget their majesty, and lose their sound.

THE VESTAL.

FROM OVID DE FASTIS, LIB. III. EL. 1.

Blanda quies victis furtim subrepit ocellis, &c.

As the fair vestal to the fountain came,
(Let none be startled at a vestal's name)
Tired with the walk, she laid her down to rest,
And to the winds exposed her glowing breast,
To take the freshness of the morning-air,
And gather'd in a knot her flowing hair;
While thus she rested, on her arm reclined,
The hoary willows waving with the wind,
And feather'd choirs that warbled in the shade,
And purling streams that through the meadow stray'd,
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In drowsy murmurs lull'd the gentle maid.
The god of war beheld the virgin lie,
The god beheld her with a lover's eye;
And by so tempting an occasion press'd,
The beauteous maid, whom he beheld, possess'd:
Conceiving as she slept, her fruitful womb
Swell'd with the founder of immortal Rome.

OVID'S METAMORPHOSES.

BOOK II.

THE STORY OF PHAETON.

The sun's bright palace, on high columns raised,
With burnished gold and flaming jewels blazed;
The folding gates diffused a silver light,
And with a milder gleam refreshed the sight;
Of polished ivory was the covering wrought:
The matter vied not with the sculptor's thought,
For in the portal was displayed on high
(The work of Vulcan) a fictitious sky;
A waving sea the inferior earth embraced,
And gods and goddesses the waters graced.
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AEgeon here a mighty whale bestrode;
Triton, and Proteus, (the deceiving god,)
With Doris here were carved, and all her train,
Some loosely swimming in the figured main,
While some on rocks their dropping hair divide,
And some on fishes through the waters glide:
Though various features did the sisters grace,
A sister's likeness was in every face.
On earth a different landscape courts the eyes,
Men, towns, and beasts, in distant prospects rise