The astonish’d youth, where’er his eyes could turn, Beheld the universe around him burn: The world was in a blaze; nor could he bear The sultry vapours and the scorching air, Which from below, as from a furnace, flow’d: And now the axletree beneath him glow’d. Lost in the whirling clouds that round him broke, And white with ashes, hovering in the smoke, He flew where’er the horses drove, nor knew Whither the horses drove, or where he flew.

’Twas then, they say, the swarthy Moor begun To change his hue, and blacken in the sun; Then Libya first, of all her moisture drain’d, Became a barren waste, a wild of sand; The water-nymphs lament their empty urns; Boeotia, robb’d of silver Dirce, mourns; Corinth Pyrene’s wasted spring bewails; And Argos grieves while Amymone fails.