Page:Rape of Prosperine - Claudian (1854).djvu/78


 * 'Tis then an odour of divinest myrrh

Steals through the fane, and, as the breezes stir— Soft and more soft—the far Pelusian lakes, A breath of Ind the raptured sense awakes, And, redolent of health, perfumes awhile, More sweet than nectar, the dark mouths of Nile.
 * O happy bird! thine own surviving heir,

"Whose smouldering ashes still new life prepare; To whom decay but firmer strength supplies, For not thyself—'tis but thine age that dies: Eternal witness of whate'er has been— All changes of the world thine eye hath seen: The time when ocean's waters, day by day Upborne, in stillness on the mountains lay: And that, when Phäeton, in wild career, To conflagration doomed the wasted year. Thee neither death, nor mundane ills invade, Safe mid destruction, fresh when all things fade; For thee the Parcæ weave their webs in vain— Unharmed thou art, and shalt unharm'd remain.