Meantime on shore triumphant Perseus stood, And purged his hands, smear’d with the monster’s blood: Then in the windings of a sandy bed Composed Medusa’s execrable head. But to prevent the roughness, leaves he threw, And young green twigs, which soft in waters grew, There soft, and full of sap; but here, when laid, Touch’d by the head, that softness soon decay’d. The wonted flexibility quite gone, The tender scions harden’d into stone. Fresh juicy twigs, surprised, the Nereids brought, Fresh juicy twigs the same contagion caught. The nymphs the petrifying seeds still keep, And propagate the wonder through the deep. The pliant sprays of coral yet declare Their stiff’ning nature, when exposed to air. Those sprays, which did like bending osiers move, Snatch’d from their element obdurate prove, And shrubs beneath the waves grow stones above.