juice
Of Hydra; urgent wish for roaming wide;
Oblivion mental-blinded; wicked deeds;
Weeping; and furious fierceness, slaughter fond.
On these commingled, fresh-drawn gore she pour'd,
And warm'd them bubbling in a brazen vase;
Stirr'd by a sprouting hemlock. Trembling, they
Shudder, while in their breasts the poison fierce
She pours: both bosoms feel it deep instill'd;--
Their inmost vitals feel it. Then her torch,
Whirl'd flaming round and round, in triumph glares,
Fires from the circling gathering. Powerful thus;
Victorious in her aims, and deeds desir'd,
To mighty Pluto's shadowy realm she speeds;
And from her loins untwists the girding snakes.

Mad bounded Athamas amid the hall,
"Ho! friends," exclaiming;--"here spread wide your toils,
"Here, in this thicket, where ev'n now I saw
"With young twin cubs, a lioness!"--and mad,
Pursu'd his consort for a savage beast;
Snatching Learchus, who with playful smile,
Outstretch'd his infant hands to meet him. Torne
Rough from his mother's bosom, round in air
And round, sling-like he whirl'd; then savage dash'd
Upon a rugged rock the tender bones.

Loud howls the frantic mother; frantic made
By grief, or by the scatter'd poison's power:
And, raving, with dishevell'd tresses spread
Wide o'er her shoulders, flies. Her naked arms
Young Melicertes bear; madly she shrieks;--
"Evoe, Bacchus!"--Loud at Bacchus' name
Revengeful Juno laugh'd, and said;--"Such boon
"Thy foster-son upon his nurse confers!"
A lofty rock the foaming waves o'erhangs,
Whose dashing force deep in its base have scoop'd
A cavern, safely sheltering from the showers:
The adamantine summit high extends,
And o'er the wide main stretches. Swift this height,
Active and strong with madness, Ino gain'd
And fearless, with the infant in her arms,
Sprung from the cliff, and sunk beneath the waves.
White foam'd the surge around her!

Venus, griev'd,
Such sufferings, undeserv'd, her race should bear,
Thus with bland coaxings Ocean's god address'd:
"Lord of the azure deep, whose high command
"Sways next to heaven's,--a vast demand I ask;--
"But pity my poor offspring, whom thou see'st
"Plung'd in th' Ionian billows;--with their forms
"Thy deities increase. Some influence sure,
"In ocean I should hold, from thence produc'd;
"Sprung from the froth that on the deep main sw