Gives her his breast to stroke, and downward turns
  His grisly brow, and gently stoops his horns.
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  In flowery wreaths the royal virgin dressed
  His bending horns, and kindly clapped his breast. 
  Till now grown wanton, and devoid of fear,
  Not knowing that she pressed the Thunderer,
  She placed herself upon his back, and rode
  O’er fields and meadows, seated on the god. 
     He gently marched along, and by degrees
  Left the dry meadow, and approached the seas;
  Where now he dips his hoofs and wets his thighs,
  Now plunges in, and carries off the prize.
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  The frighted nymph looks backward on the shore,
  And hears the tumbling billows round her roar;
  But still she holds him fast:  one hand is borne
  Upon his back, the other grasps a horn: 
  Her train of ruffling garments flies behind,
  Swells in the air and hovers in the wind. 
     Through storms and tempests he the virgin bore,
  And lands her safe on the Dictean shore;
  Where now, in his divinest form arrayed,
  In his true shape he captivates the maid;
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  Who gazes on him, and with wondering eyes
  Beholds the new majestic figure rise,
  His glowing features, and celestial light,
  And all the god discovered to her sight.

BOOK III.

THE STORY OF CADMUS.

  When now Agenor had his daughter lost,
  He sent his son to search on every coast;
  And sternly bid him to his arms restore
  The darling maid, or see his face no more,
  But live an exile in a foreign clime: 
  Thus was the father pious to a crime. 
     The restless youth searched all the world around;
  But how can Jove in his amours be found? 
  When tired at length with unsuccessful toil,
  To shun his angry sire and native soil,
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  He goes a suppliant to the Delphic dome;
  There asks the god what new-appointed home
  Should end his wanderings and his toils relieve. 
  The Delphic oracles this answer give: 
     ’Behold among the fields a lonely cow,
  Unworn with yokes, unbroken to the plough;
  Mark well the place where first she lays her down,
  There measure out thy walls, and build thy town,
  And from thy guide, Boetia call the land,
  In which the destined walls and town shall stand.’
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     No sooner had he left the dark abode,
  Big with the promise of the Delphic god,
  When in the fields the fatal cow he viewed,
  Nor galled with yokes, nor worn with servitude: 
  Her gently at a distance he pursued;
  And, as he walked aloof, in silence prayed
  To the great power whose counsels he obeyed. 
  Her way through flowery Panope she took,
  And now, Cephisus, crossed thy silver brook;
  When to the heavens her spacious front she raised,
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  And bellowed thrice, then backward turning,