Jove, with a nod, complied with her desire; Around the body flamed the funeral fire; The pile decreased, that lately seem’d so high, And sheets of smoke roll’d upward to the sky: As humid vapours from a marshy bog Rise by degrees, condensing into fog, That intercept the sun’s enlivening ray, And with a cloud infect the cheerful day; The sooty ashes wafted by the air, Whirl round, and thicken in a body there; Then take a form, which their own heat and fire, With active life and energy inspire. Its lightness makes it seem to fly, and soon It skims on real wings, that are its own; A real bird, it beats the breezy wind, Mix’d with a thousand sisters of the kind, That, from the same formation newly sprung, Upborne aloft on plumy pinions hung. Thrice round the pile advanced the circling throng; Thrice, with their wings, a whizzing consort rung. In the fourth flight their squadron they divide, Rank’d in two different troops, on either side: Then two and two, inspired with martial rage, From either troop in equal pairs engage.