“Thus far unseen I saw; when fatal chance His looks directing, with a sudden glance, Acis and I were to his sight betray’d, Where, naught suspecting, we securely play’d, From his wide mouth a bellowing cry he cast: ‘I see, I see; but this shall be your last.’ A roar so loud made jEtna to rebound; And all the cyclop labour’d in the sound. Affrighted with his monstrous voice, I fled, And in the neighbouring ocean plunged my head: Poor Acis turn’d his back, and, ‘Help,’ he cried, ‘Help, Galatea; help, my parent gods, And take me, dying, to your deep abodes.’ The cyclop follow’d, but he sent before A rib, which from the living rock he tore: Though but an angle reach’d him of the stone, The mighty fragment was enough alone To crush all Acis. ’Twas too late to save; But what the fntes allow’d to give, I gave; That Acis to his lineage should return, And roll among the river gods his urn. Straight issued from the stone a stream of blood, Which lost the purple, mingling with the flood: Then like a double torrent it appear’d,

The torrent too, in little space was clear’d The stone was cleft and through the yawning chink New reeds arose on the new river’s brink. The rock, from out its hollow womb, disclosed A sound like water in its course opposed, When, wondrous to behold! full in the flood, Up starts a youth, and navel-high he stood; Horns from his temples rise, and either horn Thick wreaths of reeds (his native growth) adorn. Were not his stature taller than before, His bulk augmented, and his beauty more, His colour blue, for Acis he might pass, And Acis changed into a stream he was: But mine no more; he rolls along the plains With rapid motion, and his name retains.”

Glaucus, a fisherman of Boeotia, is transformed into a sea god, and becomes enamoured of a nereid, named Scylla, who rejects his suit.

Here ceased the nymph; the fair assembly broke, The sea-green nereids to the waves betook; While Scylla, fearful of the wide-spread main, Swift to the safer shore returns again; There o’er the sandy margin, unarray’d, With printless footsteps, flies the bounding maid; Or in some winding creek’s secure retreat She bathes her weary limbs, and shuns the noonday heat. Her, Glaucus saw, as o’er the deep he rode, New to the seas, and late received a god. He saw, and languish’d for the virgin’s love. With many an artful blandishment he strove Her flight to hinder, and her fears remove. The more he sues, the more she wings her flight. And nimbly gains a neighbouring mountain’s height Steep shelving to the margin of the flood, A neighbouring mountain bare and woodless stood. Here, by the place secured, her steps she stay’d, And, trembling still, her lover’s form survey’d. His shape, his hue, her troubled sense appal, And drooping locks, that o’er his shoulders fall; She sees his face divine, and manly brow, End in a fish’s writhy tail below; She sees, and doubts within her anxious mind,