Benumb’d with cold, and fasten’d to the ground; A filmy rind about her body grows; Her hair to leaves, her arms extend to boughs: The nymph is all into a laurel gone; The smoothness of her skin remains alone. Yet Phoebus loves her still, and casting round Her bole his arms, some little warmth he found. The tree still panted in the unfinish’d part, Not wholly vegetive, and heaved her heart. He fix’d his lips upon the trembling rind; It swerved aside, and his embrace declined: To whom the god, “Because thou canst not be My mistress, I espouse thee for my tree: Be thou the prize of honour and renown; The deathless poet, and the poem, crown: Thou shalt the Roman festivals adorn, And, after poets, be by victors worn: Thou shalt returning Caesar’s triumph grace, When pomps shall in a long procession pass; Wreath’d on the post before his palace wait, And be the sacred guardian of the gate: Secure from thunder, and unharm’d by Jove; Unfading as the immortal powers above: And as the locks of Phoebus are unshorn,