limbs to earth grew fasten'd: ghastly pale
"Her color; chang'd to bloodless leaves she stood,
"Streak'd ruddy here and there;--a violet flower
"Her face o'erspreading. Still that face she turns,
"To meet the sun;--though binding roots retain
"Her feet, her love unalter'd still remains."

She ended; all their listening ears, well pleas'd,
The wonderous story heard. Some hard of faith
Its truth, its probability deny.
To true divinities such power some grant;
And power to compass more;--to Bacchus none
Such potence own. The sisters, silent now,
Alcithoe beg to speak: she shooting swift
Her shuttle through th' extended threads, exclaims;--
"Of Daphnis' love, so known, on Ida's hill,
"His flocks who tended, whom his angry nymph,
"To stone transform'd (such fury fires the breast
"Of those who desperate love!) I shall not tell:
"Nor yet of Scython, of ambiguous form,
"Now male, now female; nature's wonted laws
"Inconstant proving: thee, O Celmis! too
"I pass; once faithful nurse to infant Jove,
"Now chang'd to adamant: Curetes! sprung
"From showery floods: Crocus, and Smilax, both
"To blooming flowers transform'd: unnotic'd these,
"My tale from novelty itself shall please:
"How Salmacis so infamous became,
"Then list; whose potent waves, the luckless limbs
"Enerve, of those they bathe. Conceal'd the cause;
"Yet far and wide the fountain's power is known.

"Deep in the sheltering caves of Ida's hill,
"The Naiaed nymphs a beauteous infant nurs'd;
"Whom Cyprus' goddess unto Hermes bore.
"His father's beauty, and his mother's, shone
"In every feature; in his name conjoin'd
"He bore their appellations. When matur'd
"By fifteen summers, from paternal hills
"Straying, he wander'd from his nursing Ide:
"In lands unknown he joy'd, and joy'd to see
"Strange rivers,--pleasure lessening every toil.
"Through Lycia's towns he stray'd; and further still,
"To bordering Caria, where a pool he spy'd,
"Whose lowest depth a gleam transparent shew'd:
"No marshy canes,--no filthy barren weeds,
"Nor pointed bulrush near the margin grew:
"Full on the eye the water shone, yet round
"Its brink a border smil'd of verdant turf,
"And plants forever green. Here dwelt a nymph,
"But one who never join'd the active chace;
"The bow who never bent; who never strove
"To conquer in the race: of all the nymphs,
"Alone no comrade of Diana fleet