roots detain'd them; and fast ty'd,
Spite of their struggling bounds, while they explore
For toes and nails, and while they seek for feet,
They see the wood their taper legs conceal;
Their grieving hands to beat their thighs are rais'd;
Their hands strike solid wood: their shoulders, breasts,
Are also wood become. Their outstretch'd arms
Extended boughs appear'd, and boughs they were.

Nor sated yet was Bacchus; all their fields
He quits; attended by a worthier troop.
To Tmolus' vineyards and Pactolus' stream
He hies: the stream not yet for gold was fam'd;
Not yet so precious were its envy'd sands.
Satyrs and Bacchant' nymphs, his 'custom'd choir
Attend him, but Silenus was not found.
Him drunken had the rustic Phrygians seiz'd,
Reeling with wine, and tottering 'neath his years;
With ivy crown'd; and fetter'd to their king,
The royal Midas, brought him. Midas once
The Thracian Orpheus Bacchus' orgies taught,
With sage Eumolpus; and at once he knew
His old associate in the sacred rites;
And joyful feasted with voluptuous fare,
For twice five days, and twice five nights his guest.
Th' eleventh time Phosphor' now the lofty host
Of stars had chas'd from heaven; the jovial king
Went forth to Lydia's fields, and there restor'd
Silenus to the youth his foster-child.
He, joy'd again his nursing sire to see,
On him bestow'd his anxious sought desire,
Though useless was the gift. Greedy he crav'd
What only harm'd him,--saying--"Grant, O, power!
"Whate'er I touch may straight to gold be chang'd"--
Bacchus consents to what he wishes;--gives
The hurtful gift; but grieves to see his mind
No better wish demand. Joyful departs
The Berecynthian monarch, with ill-fate
Delighted; and, each object touching, tries
The promis'd faith. Scarcely himself believ'd,
When from a growing ilex down he tore
A sprouting bough, straight gold the bough became:
A stone from earth he lifted, pale the stone
In gold appear'd: he touch'd a turfy clod,
The clod quick harden'd with the potent touch:
He pluck'd the ripen'd hoary ears of wheat,
And golden shone the grain: he from the tree
An apple snatch'd, the fam'd Hesperian fruit
He seem'd to hold: where'er his fingers touch'd
The lofty pillars, all the pillars shone:
Nay, where his hands he in the waters lav'd,
The waters flowing from his hands seem'd such
As Danae might deceive. Scarce can