She saw him in his present misery, Whom, spite of all her wrongs, she grieved to see. She answer’d sadly to the lover’s moan, Sigh’d back his sighs, and groan’d to every groan. “Ah youth! beloved in vain,” Narcissus cries; “Ah youth! beloved in vain,” the nymph replies. “Farewell,” says he; the parting sound scarce fell From his faint lips, but she replied, “Farewell.” Then on the unwholesome earth he gasping lies, Till death shuts up those self-admiring eyes. To the cold shades his fitting ghost retires, And in the Stygian waves itself admires.

For him the Naiads and the Dryads mourn, Whom the sad Echo answers in her turn; And now the sister-nymphs prepare his urn: When, looking for his corpse, they only found A rising stalk with yellow blossoms crown’d.