“ ‘Yet, if you knew me well, you would not shun My love, but to my wish’d embraces run: Would languish in your turn, and court my stay, And much repent of your unwise delay.
“ ‘Oh raise, fair nymph, your beauteous face above The waves, nor scorn my presents and my love. Come, Galatea, come, and view my face; I late beheld it in the watery glass, And found it lovelier than I fear’d it was. Survey my towering stature, and my size: Not Jove, the Jove you dream that rules the skies, Bears such a bulk, or is so largely spread: My locks (the plenteous harvest of my head) Hang o’er my manly face, and dangling down, As with a shady grove, my shoulders crown: Nor think, because my limbs and body bear A thickset underwood of bristling hair, My shape deform’d; what fouler sight can be Than the bald branches of a leafless tree? Foul is the steed without a flowing mane, And birds without their feathers and their train. Wool decks the sheep, and man receives a grace From bushy limbs, and from a bearded face: My forehead with a single eye is fill’d, Round as a ball, and ample as a shield; The glorious lamp of heaven, the radiant sun, Is nature’s eye, and she’s content with one: Add, that my father sways your seas, and I,
Like you, am of the watery family; I make you his, in making you my own; You I adore, and kneel to you alone. Jove, with his fabled thunder, I despise, And only fear the lightning of your eyes. Frown not, fair nymph; yet I could bear to be Disdain’d, if others were disdain’d with me But to repulse the cyclop, and prefer The love of Acis, heavens! I cannot bear. But let the stripling please himself; nay, more, Please you, though that’s the thing I most abhor; The boy shall find, if e’er we cope in fight,’ These giant limbs endued with giant might. His living bowels, from his belly torn, And scatter’d limbs, shall on the flood be borne; Thy flood, ungrateful nymph, and fate shall find That way for thee and Acis to be join’d: For, oh! I burn with love, and thy disdain Augments at once my passion and my pain. Translated Aetna flames within my heart, And thou, inhuman, wilt not ease my smart.’
“Lamenting thus in vain, he rose, and strode With furious paces to the neighbouring wood: Restless his feet, distracted was his walk, Mad were his motions, and confused his talk: Mad as the vanquish’d bull when forced to yield His lovely mistress, and forsake the field.