Page:Ovid's Metamorphoses (Vol. 1) - tr Garth, Dryden, et. al. (1727).djvu/261

The thing indeed the Meanness of the Place
Has made obscure, surprizing as it was;
But I my self once happen'd to behold
This famous Lake of which the Story's told.
My Father then, worn out by Length of Days,
Nor able to sustain the tedious Ways,
Me with a Guide had sent the Plains to roam,
And drive his well-fed stragling Heifers home.
Here, as we saunter'd thro' the verdant Meads,
We spy'd a Lake o'er-grown with trembling Reeds,
Whose wavy Tops an op'ning Scene disclose,
From which an antique smoaky Altar rose.
I, as my superstitious Guide had done,
Stop'd short, and bless'd my self, and then went on;
Yet I enquir'd to whom the Altar stood,
Faunus, the Naids, or some native God?
No Silvan Deity, my Friend replies,
Enshrin'd within this hallow'd Altar lies:
For this, O Youth, to that fam'd Goddess stands,
Whom, at th' imperial Juno's rough Commands,
Of ev'ry Quarter of the Earth bereav'd,
Delos, the floating Isle, at length receiv'd.
Who there, in spite of Enemies, brought forth,
Beneath an Olive's Shade, her great Twin-birth.
Hence too she fled the furious Stepdame's Pow'r,
And in her Arms a double Godhead bore;
And now the Borders of fair Lycia gain'd,
Just when the Summer Solstice parch'd the Land,
With Thirst the Goddess languishing, no more
Her empty'd Breast would yield its milky Store;
When, from below, the smiling Valley show'd
A silver Lake that in its Bottom flow'd:
A sort of Clowns were reaping, near the Bank,
The bending Osier, and the Bullrush dank;
The Cresse, and Water-lilly, fragrant Weed,
Whose juicy Stalk the liquid Fountains feed.

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