Juno's bosom you inflame,
And fill with transport heaven's immortal dame.'
The god surprised, would fain have stopped her voice:
But he had swrorn, and she had made her choice.
To keep his promise he ascends, and shrouds
His awful brow in whirlwinds and in clouds;
_70
Whilst all around, in terrible array,
His thunders rattle, and his lightnings play.
And yet, the dazzling lustre to abate,
He set not out in all his pomp and state,
Clad in the mildest lightning of the skies,
And armed with thunder of the smallest size:
Not those huge bolts, by which the giants slain,
Lay overthrown on the Phlegraean plain.
Twas of a lesser mould, and lighter weight;
They call it thunder of a second-rate.
_80
For the rough Cyclops, who by Jove's command
Tempered the bolt, and turned it to his hand,
Worked up less flame and fury in its make,
And quenched it sooner in the standing lake.
Thus dreadfully adorned, with horror bright,
The illustrious god, descending from his height,
Came rushing on her in a storm of light.
The mortal dame, too feeble to engage
The lightning's flashes and the thunder's rage,
Consumed amidst the glories she desired,
_90
And in the terrible embrace expired.
But, to preserve his offspring from the tomb,
Jove took him smoking from the blasted womb;
And, if on ancient tales we may rely,
Enclosed the abortive infant in his thigh.
Here, when the babe had all his time fulfilled,
Ino first took him for her foster-child;
Then the Niseans, in their dark abode,
Nursed secretly with milk the thriving god.

THE TRANSFORMATION OF TIRESIAS.

'Twas now, while these transactions passed on earth,
And Bacchus thus procured a second birth,
When Jove, disposed to lay aside the weight
Of public empire and the cares of state,
As to his queen in nectar bowls he quaffed,
'In troth,' says he, and as he spoke he laughed,
'The sense of pleasure in the male is far
More dull and dead than what you females share.'
Juno the truth of what was said denied;
Tiresias therefore must the cause decide;
_10
For he the pleasure of each sex had tried.
It happened once, within a shady wood,
Two twisted snakes he in conjunction viewed;
When with his staff their slimy folds he broke,
And lost his manhood at the fatal stroke.
But, after seven revolving years, he viewed
The self-same serpents in the self-same wood;
'An