Four times, revolving, the full moon return’d, So long the mother and the daughters mourn’d, When now the eldest, Phaethusa, strove To rest her weary limbs, but could not move; Lampetia would have help’d her, but she found Herself withheld and rooted to the ground; A third, in wild affliction as she grieves, Would rend her hair, but fills her hands with leaves: One sees her thighs transform’d, another views Her arms slot out and branching into boughs, And now their legs, and breasts, and bodies, stood Crusted with bark, and harden’d into wood; But still above were female heads display’d, And mouths, that call’d the mother to their aid. What could, alas! the weeping mother do? From this to that with eager haste she flew, And kiss’d her sprouting daughters as they grew; She tears the bark that to each body cleaves; And from their verdant fingers strips the leaves; The blood came trickling where she tore away The leaves and bark. The maids were heard to say “Forbear, mistaken parent, O forbear! A wounded daughter in each tree you tear; Farewell for ever.” Here the bark increased, Closed on their faces, and their words suppress’d.