Antiochus is next; his life to save,
    My ready hand my beauteous consort gave,
    (From me, whose will was law, a legal prize,)
    That bound our souls in everlasting ties
    Indissolubly strong.  The royal fair
    Forsook a throne to cure the deep despair
    Of him, who would have dared the stroke of Death,
    To keep, without a stain, his filial faith. 
    A skilful leech the deadly symptoms guess’d;
    His throbbing veins the secret soon confess’d
    Of Love with honour match’d, in dire debate,
    Whenever he beheld my lovely mate;
    Else gentle Love, subdued by filial dread,
    Had sent him down among th’ untimely dead.”—­
    Then, like a man that feels a sudden thought
    His purpose change, the mingling crowd he sought,
    And left the question, which a moment hung
    Scarce half suppress’d upon my faltering tongue. 
    Suspended for a moment, still I stood,
    With various thoughts oppress’d in musing mood. 
    At length a voice was heard, “The passing day
    Is yours, but it permits not long delay.”—­
    I turn’d in haste, and saw a fleeting train
    Outnumbering those who pass’d the surging main
    By Xerxes led—­a naked wailing crew,
    Whose wretched plight the drops of sorrow drew
    From my full eyes.—­Of many a clime and tongue
    Commix’d the mournful pageant moved along
    While scarce the fortunes or the name of one
    Among a thousand passing forms was known. 
    I spied that Ethiopian’s dusky charms,
    Which woke in Perseus’ bosom Love’s alarms;
    And next was he who for a shadow burn’d,
    Which the deceitful watery glass return’d;
    Enamour’d of himself, in sad decay—­
    Amid abundance, poor—­he look’d his life away;
    And now transform’d through passion’s baneful power,
    He o’er the margin hangs, a drooping flower;
    While, by her hopeless love congeal’d to stone,
    His mistress seems to look in silence on;
    Then he that loved, by too severe a fate,
    The cruel maid who met his love with hate,
    Pass’d by; with many more who met their doom
    By female pride, and fill’d an early tomb.—­
    There too, the victim of her plighted vows,
    Halcyone for ever mourns her spouse;
    Who now, in feathers clad, as poets feign,
    Makes a short summer on the wintry main.—­
    Then he that to the cliffs the maid pursued,
    And seem’d by turns to soar, and swim the flood;—­
    And she, who, snared by Love, her father sold,
    With her, who fondly snared the rolling gold;
    And her young paramour, who made his boast
    That he had gain’d the prize his rival lost.—­
    Acis and Galatea next were seen,
    And Polyphemus with infuriate mien;—­
    And Glaucus there, by rival arts assail’d,
    Fell Circe’s hate and Scylla’s doom bewail’d.—­