Lightly I tripp’d, nor weary as before: Sunk in the sand, but skimm’d along the shore, Till, rising on my wings, I was preferr’d To be the chaste Minerva’s virgin bird. Preferr’d in vain! I now am in disgrace: Nyctimene, the owl, enjoys my place.

“On her incestuous life I need not dwell (In Lesbos still the horrid tale they tell), And of her dire amours you must have heard, For which she now does penance in a bird; That, conscious of her shame, avoids the light, And loves the gloomy covering of the night. The birds, where’er she flutters, scare away The hooting wretch, and drive her from the day.”

The raven, urged by such impertinence, Grew passionate, it seems, and took offence, And cursed the harmless daw; the daw withdrew. The raven to her injured patron flew, And found him out, and told the fatal truth Of false Coronis, and the favour’d youth.