Stay, filly bird, th' ill-natur'd task refufe,

"Nor be the bearer of unwelcome news.
"Be warn'd by my example: you discern
"What now I am, and what I was fhall learn.
"My foolish honefty was all my crime;
"Then hear my ftory. Once upon a time,
"The two fhap'd Erichonius had his birth

66

(Without a mother) from the teeming earth; "Minerva nurs'd him, and the infant laid "Within a cheft, of twining ofiers made. "The daughters of King Cecrops undertook "To guard the cheft, commanded not to look "On what was hid within. I ftood to fee "The charge obey'd, perch'd on a neighb'ring tree. "The fifters Pandrofos and Hersè keep

"The ftrict command; Aglauros needs would peep, And faw the monftrous infant in a fright,

"And call'd her fifters to the hideous fight:

A Boy's foft shape did to the wafte prevail,

"But the boy ended in a dragon's tail.
"I told the ftern Minerva all that pass'd,
"But for my pains, discarded and disgrac❜d,
"The frowning goddess drove me from her fight,
"And for her favourite chose the bird of night.
"Be then no tell-tale; for I think my wrong
"Enough to teach a bird to hold her tongue."

VOL. I.

K

" But

"But you, perhaps, may think I was remov'd, "As never by the heav'nly maid belov'd; "But I was lov'd; afk Pallas if I lie ;

"Tho' Pallas hate me now, she won't deny :

"For I, whom in a feather'd fhape you view,

"Was once a maid, (by heav'n! the story's true)
"A blooming maid, and a King's daughter too.
"A croud of lovers own'd my beauty's charms;
"My beauty was the caufe of all my harms;
"Neptune, as on his shores I went to rove,
"Obferv'd me in my walks and fell in love.
"He made his courtship, he confefs'd his pain,
"And offer'd force when all his arts were vain;
"Swift he purfu'd: I ran along the stand,
""Till, spent and weary on the finking sand,
"I fhriek'd aloud, with cries I fill'd the air

"To gods and men; nor God nor man was there :
"A virgin goddess heard a virgin's prayer.

"For, as my arm I lifted to the skies,

"I faw biak feathers from my fingers rife ;
"I ftrove to fling my garment on the ground;
"My garment turn'd to plumes, and girt me round.

My hands to beat my naked bofom try;

"Nor naked bofom now nor hands had I.

"Lightly I tript, nor weary as before

"Sunk in the fand, but skim'd along the shore;

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66 "Till

"Till, rifing on my wings, I was prefer'd "To be the chaste Minerva's virgin bird: "Prefer'd in vain! I now am in difgrace: "Nyctimene the owl enjoys my place.

"On her inceftuous life I need not dwell, "(In Lesbos ftill the horrid tale they tell) "And of her dire amours you must have heard, "For which fhe now does penance in a bird,

That, confcious of her fhame, avoids the light, And loves the gloomy covering of the night; "The birds, where'er fhe flutters, scare away "The hooting wretch, and drive her from the day." The raven, urg'd by fuch impertinence,

Grew paffionate, it seems, and took offence,

And curit the harmless daw; the daw withdrew:

The raven to her injur'd patron flew,

And found him out, and told the fatal truth

Of falfe Coronis and the favour'd youth.

The God was wroth; the colour left his look,
The wreath his head, the harp his hand forfook:
His filver bow and feather'd shafts he took,
And lodg'd an arrow in the tender breast,

That had fo often to his own been preft.

Down fell the wounded nymph, and fadly groan'd,
And pull'd his arrow reeking from the wound;

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And

And weltring in her blood, thus faintly cry'd,
"Ah cruel God! tho' I have justly dy'd,
"What has, alas! my unborn infant done,
"That he should fall, and two expire in one?
This faid, in agonies fhe fetch'd her breath."

The God diffolves in pity at her death;

He hates the bird that made her falfhood known,
And hates himself for what himself had done;
The feather'd fhaft, that fent her to the fates,
And his own hand, that fent the shaft, he hates.
Fain would he heal the wound, and ease her pain,
And tries the compafs of his art in vain.
Soon as he saw the lovely nymph expire,
The pile made ready, and the kindling fire,
With fighs and groans her obfequies he kept,
And, if a God could weep, the God had wept.
Her corps he kiss'd, and heav'nly incenfe brought,
And folemniz'd the death himself had wrought.

But, left his offspring fhould her fate partake,
Spite of th' immortal mixture in his make,
He ript her womb, and fet the child at large,
And gave him to the centaur Chiron's charge:
Then in his fury black'd the raven o'er,

And bid him prate in his white plumes no more.

OCYRRHOE transform'd to a Mare.

Old Chiron took the babe with fecret joy, Proud of the charge of the celeftial boy, His daughter too, whom on the fandy fhore, The nymph Chariclo to the centaur bore, With hair dishevel'd on her fhoulders came To fee the child, Ocyrrhöe was her name; She knew her father's art, and could rehearse The depths of prophecy in founding verse. Once, as the facred infant the furvey'd The God was kindled in the raving maid, And thus fhe utter'd her prophetic tale "Hail, great Phyfician of the world, all hail ; "Hail, mighty infant, who in years to come "Shalt heal the nations, and defraud the tomb; "Swift be thy growth! thy triumphs unconfin'd! "Make kingdoms thicker, and increase mankind. Thy daring art thall animate the dead,

;

"And draw the thunder on thy guilty head:
"Then halt thou die; but from the dark abode

"Rife up victorious, and be twice a God.

“And thou, my fire, not deftin'd by thy birth

"To turn to duft, and mix with common earth,