EUROPA’S RAPE.

    When now the god his fury had allayed,
  And taken vengeance of the stubborn maid,
  From where the bright Athenian turrets rise
  He mounts aloft, and reascends the skies. 
  Jove saw him enter the sublime abodes,
  And, as he mixed among the crowd of gods,
  Beckoned him out, and drew him from the rest,
  And in soft whispers thus his will expressed. 
     ’My trusty Hermes, by whose ready aid
  Thy sire’s commands are through the world conveyed,
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  Resume thy wings, exert their utmost force,
  And to the walls of Sidon speed they course;
  There find a herd of heifers wandering o’er
  The neighbouring hill, and drive them to the shore.’ 
     Thus spoke the god, concealing his intent. 
  The trusty Hermes on his message went,
  And found the herd of heifers wandering o’er
  A neighbouring hill, and drove them to the shore;
  Where the king’s daughter, with a lovely train
  Of fellow-nymphs, was sporting on the plain.
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     The dignity of empire laid aside,
  (For love but ill agrees with kingly pride,)
  The ruler of the skies, the thundering god,
  Who shakes the world’s foundations with a nod,
  Among a herd of lowing heifers ran,
  Frisked in a bull, and bellowed o’er the plain. 
  Large rolls of fat about his shoulders clung,
  And from his neck the double dewlap hung. 
  His skin was whiter than the snow that lies
  Unsullied by the breath of southern skies;
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  Small shining horns on his curled forehead stand,
  As turned and polished by the workman’s hand;
  His eye-balls rolled, not formidably bright,
  But gazed and languished with a gentle light. 
  His every look was peaceful, and expressed
  The softness of the lover in the beast. 
     Agenor’s royal daughter, as she played
  Among the fields, the milk-white bull surveyed,
  And viewed his spotless body with delight,
  And at a distance kept him in her sight.
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  At length she plucked the rising flowers, and fed
  The gentle beast, and fondly stroked his head. 
  He stood well pleased to touch the charming fair,
  But hardly could confine his pleasure there. 
  And now he wantons o’er the neighbouring strand,
  Now rolls his body on the yellow sand;
  And now, perceiving all her fears decayed,
  Comes tossing forward to the royal maid;