And now of blood exhausted he appears, Drain’d by a torrent of continual tears; The fleshy colour in his body fades, And a green tincture all his limbs invades: From his fair head, where curling locks late hung, A horrid bush with bristled branches sprung, Which, stiffening by degrees, its stem extends, Till to the starry skies the spire ascends.

Apollo sad look’d on, and sighing, cried: “Then, be for ever what thy prayer implied, Bemoan’d by me, in others grief excite, And still preside at every funeral rite.”