Page:Virgil - The Georgics, Thomas Nevile, 1767.djvu/129

 

No love, no joys connubial touch'd his soul;
Forlorn he roam'd, where Tanais' white waves roll,
O'er Hyperborean ice, o'er tracts of ground 615
Throughout the year in frosts Riphæan bound,
Mourning Dis' fruitless boon, and his lost Bride:
When, stung with rage at his disdainful pride
The Thracian matrons, 'mid the rites divine,
And midnight orgies of the God of wine, 620
Spread o'er the fields the Poet, piecemeal torn:
Then as his head by Hebrus' flood was born,
Rent from the marble neck, ev'n the cold tongue
And fault'ring voice Eurydice still sung;
Ah poor Eurydice! with last breath cry'd; 625
Eurydice the distant banks reply'd.

This said, the Prophet in his wat'ry bed
Plung'd; and the waves curl'd foamy o'er his head:
Not so Cyrene; to her trembling son
Uncall'd the Goddess came, and thus begun: 630
Be ev'ry care now banish'd from your breast;
See the sad source of this devouring pest!
Hence have the Nymphs, with whom she playful wove
The social dance in the sequestered grove,
Pour'd on your bees this plague: but haste, and gain
By gifts and pray'r the mild Napæan train; 636

Won