Page:Ovid's Metamorphoses (Vol. 1) - tr Garth, Dryden, et. al. (1727).djvu/131

Book 2. "Till, rising on my Wings, I was prefer'd "To be the chaste Minerva's Virgin Bird: "Prefer'd in vain! I now am in Disgrace: "Nyctimene the Owl enjoys my Place. "On her incestuous Life I need not dwell, "(In Lesbos still the horrid Tale they tell) "And of her dire Amours you must have heard, "For which she now does Penance in a Bird, "That conscious of her Shame avoids the Light, "And loves the gloomy Cov'ring of the Night; "The Birds, where-e'er she flutters, scare away "The hooting Wretch, and drive her from the Day. The Raven, urg'd by such Impertinence, Grew Passionate, it seems, and took Offence, And curst the harmless Daw; the Daw withdrew: The Raven to her injur'd Patron flew, And found him out, and told the fatal Truth Of false Coronis and the favour'd Youth. The God was wroth; the Colour left his Look, The Wreath his Head, the Harp his Hand forsook; His Silver Bow and feather'd Shafts he took, And lodg'd an Arrow in the tender Breast, That had so often to his own been prest. Down fell the wounded Nymph, and sadly groan'd, And pull'd his Arrow reeking from the Wound; And weltering in her Blood, thus faintly cry'd, "Ah cruel God! tho' I have justly dy'd, "What has, alas! my unborn Infant done, "That He should fall, and Two expire in One? This said, in Agonies she fetch'd her Breath. The God dissolves in Pity at her Death; He hates the Bird that made her Falshood known, And hates himself for what himself had done; The feather'd Shaft, that sent her to the Fates, And his own Hand, that sent the Shaft he hates. Rh