its current we restrain,
It bears down all, and foams along the plain.
But now his servants came besmeared with blood,
Sent by their haughty prince to seize the god;
The god they found not in the frantic throng
But dragged a zealous votary along.

THE MARINERS TRANSFORMED TO DOLPHINS.

Him Pentheus viewed with fury in his look,
And scarce withheld his hands, while thus he spoke:
'Vile slave! whom speedy vengeance shall pursue,
And terrify thy base, seditious crew:
Thy country and thy parentage reveal,
And why thou join'st in these mad orgies tell.'
The captive views him with undaunted eyes,
And, armed with inward innocence, replies.
'From high Meonia's rocky shores I came,
Of poor descent, Acaetes is my name:
_10
My sire was meanly born; no oxen ploughed
His fruitful fields, nor in his pastures lowed.
His whole estate within the waters lay;
With lines and hooks he caught the finny prey.
His art was all his livelihood; which he
Thus with his dying lips bequeathed to me:
In streams, my boy, and rivers, take thy chance;
There swims,' said he, 'thy whole inheritance.
'Long did I live on this poor legacy;
Till tired with rocks, and my own native sky,
_20
To arts of navigation I inclined,
Observed the turns and changes of the wind:
Learned the fit havens, and began to note
The stormy Hyades, the rainy Goat,
The bright Taeygete, and the shining Bears,
With all the sailor's catalogue of stars.
'Once, as by chance for Delos I designed,
My vessel, driven by a strong gust of wind,
Moored in a Chian creek; ashore I went,
And all the following night in Chios spent.
_30
When morning rose, I sent my mates to bring
Supplies of water from a neighbouring spring,
Whilst I the motion of the winds explored;
Then summoned in my crew, and went aboard.
Opheltes heard my summons, and with joy
Brought to the shore a soft and lovely boy,
With more than female sweetness in his look,
Whom straggling in the neighbouring fields he took.
With fumes of wine the little captive glows,
And nods with sleep, and staggers as he goes.
_40
'I viewed him nicely, and began to trace
Each heavenly feature, each immortal grace,
And saw divinity in all his face.
"I know not who," said I, "this god should be;
But that he is a god I plainly see:
And thou, whoe'er thou art, excuse the force
These men have used; and, oh! b