etain'd
"That could be known, one all-continued wound.
"Can you, O nymph! or dare you, now compare
"Your woe with mine? Since then I have beheld
"The realm of darkness, and my mangled limbs
"Bath'd in the waves of Phlegethon. Nor life
"Had been restor'd, but through the forceful help,
"Of medicine that Apollo's offspring gave.
"From him Paeonian aid when I had gain'd
"By plants of power, though much in Pluto's spite,
"Cynthia me cover'd with her densest clouds:
"And lest my sight their hatred should increase,
"That safe I might remain, and without risk
"Be seen, she gave to my appearance age,
"Nor left me features to be known again:
"And long deliberated, whether Crete
"Or Delos, for my dwelling she would chuse.
"But, Crete and Delos both abandon'd, here
"She plac'd me, and my name she bade renounce
"Which still reminded me of my wild steeds;
"Saying--O thou, Hippolytus who wast!
"Be Virbius now! Thenceforth within these groves
"I dwell,--a minor deity, I tend
"My heavenly mistress, and increase her train."

But foreign griefs possess'd not power to chase
Egeria's woe; who at a mountain's foot
Thrown prostrate, melted in a flood of tears;
'Till Phoebus' sister by her sorrow mov'd,
Transform'd her body to a cooling fount;
And her limbs melted to still-during streams.

The miracle the wondering nymphs beheld;
Nor stood the son of Amazonia's queen
With less surprize than on the bosom seiz'd
Of the Tyrrhenian ploughman, when he view'd
The fate-foretelling clod, amidst the fields.
At first spontaneous and untouch'd it mov'd;
Then took a human figure; shook off earth,
And op'd its new-form'd prophesying mouth:
Tages the natives call'd him, who first taught
Th' Etruscan race the future to explain:
Or Romulus, when he his spear beheld
Stuck on Palatium's hill, and sudden sprout:
By a new root, not by its steely point,
Fixt fast: no more a weapon, but a tree,
With pliant branches, which afford a shade
Unlook'd for to the wondering people round:
Or Cippus, when he in the flowing stream
Beheld his new-form'd horns (for them he saw)
But thought th' appearance false; and what he view'd,
Oft rais'd his fingers to his head to touch:
No more his eyes distrusting, then he stood,
(As victor from a conquer'd foe he came,)
And raising up to heaven his hands and eyes,
"Ye gods!" he said, "whatever this portends,