To make the work more sure, a scene she drew, And placed before the dreaming virgin’s view Her sister’s marriage, and her glorious fate; The imaginary bride appears in state, The bridegroom with unwonted beauty glows; For envy magnifies whate’er she shows. Full of the dream, Aglauros pin’d away In tears all night, in darkness all the day; Consumed like ice, that just begins to run, When feebly smitten by the distant sun; Or like unwholesome weeds, that, set on fire, Are slowly wasted, and in smoke expire. Given up to envy (for in every thought The thorns, the venom, and the vision wrought), Oft did she call on death, as oft decreed, Rather than see her sister’s wish succeed, To tell her awful father what had pass’d; At length before the door herself she cast, And, sitting on the ground with suilen pride, A passage to the lovesick god denied. The god caress’d and for admission pray’d, And soothed in softest words the envenom’d maid. In vain he soothed. “Begone!” the maid replies, “Or here I keep my seat and never rise.”