niymone fails.
The floods are drained from every distant coast,
Even Tanais, though fixed in ice, was lost.
Enraged Caicus and Lycormas roar,
And Xanthus, fated to be burned once more.
The famed Meeander, that unwearied strays
Through mazy windings, smokes in every maze.
From his loved Babylon Euphrates flies;
The big-swoln Ganges and the Danube rise
_290
In thickening fumes, and darken half the skies.
In flames Ismenos and the Phasis rolled,
And Tagus floating in his melted gold.
The swans, that on Cayster often tried
Their tuneful songs, now sung their last, and died.
The frighted Nile ran off, and under-ground
Concealed his head, nor can it yet be found:
His seven divided currents all are dry,
And where they rolled seven gaping trenches lie.
No more the Rhine or Rhone their course maintain,
_300
Nor Tiber, of his promised empire vain.
The ground, deep cleft, admits the dazzling ray,
And startles Pluto with the flash of day.
The seas shrink in, and to the sight disclose
Wide, naked plains, where once their billows rose;
Their rocks are all discovered, and increase
The number of the scattered Cyclades.
The fish in shoals about the bottom creep,
Nor longer dares the crooked dolphin leap;
Gasping for breath, the unshapen phocae die,
_310
And on the boiling wave extended lie.
Nereus, and Doris with her virgin train,
Seek out the last recesses of the main;
Beneath unfathomable depths they faint,
And secret in their gloomy regions pant,
Stern Neptune thrice above the waves upheld
His face, and thrice was by the flames repelled.
The Earth at length, on every side embraced
With scalding seas, that floated round her waist,
When now she felt the springs and rivers come,
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And crowd within the hollow of her womb.
Uplifted to the heavens her blasted head,
And clapped her hands upon her brows, and said;
(But first, impatient of the sultry heat,
Sunk deeper down, and sought a cooler seat:)
'If you, great king of gods, my death approve,
And I deserve it, let me die by Jove;
If I must perish by the force of fire,
Let me transfixed with thunderbolts expire.
See, whilst I speak, my breath the vapours choke,
_330
(For now her face lay wrapt in clouds of smoke,)
See my singed hair, behold my faded eye
And withered face, where heaps of cinders lie!
And does the plough for this my body tear?
This the re