Old Chiron took the babe with secret joy, Proud of the charge of the celestial boy. His daughter too, whom on the sandy shore The nymph Chariclo to the centaur bore, With hair dishevell’d on her shoulders, came To see the child, Ocyrrhoe was her name; She knew her father’s arts, and could rehearse The depths of prophecy in sounding verse. Once as the sacred infant she survey’d, The god was kindled in the raving maid, And thus she utter’d her prophetic tale: “Hail! great physician of the world, all hail! Hail! mighty infant! who in years to come Shalt heal the nations and defraud the tomb. Swift be thy growth! thy triumphs unconfined! Make kingdoms thicker, and increase mankind. Thy daring art shall animate the dead, And draw the thunder on thy guilty head: Then shalt thou die; but from the dark abode Rise up victorious, and be twice a god. And thou, my sire, not destined by thy birth To turn to dust, and mix with common earth, How wilt thou toss, and rave, and long to die, And quit thy claim to immortality,