Famed far and near for knowing things to come,
  From him the inquiring nations sought their doom;
  The fair Liriope his answers tried,
  And first the unerring prophet justified;
  This nymph the god Cephisus had abused,
  With all his winding waters circumfused,
  And on the Nereid got a lovely boy,
  Whom the soft maids even then beheld with joy. 
     The tender dame, solicitous to know
  Whether her child should reach old age or no,
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  Consults the sage Tiresias, who replies,
  ‘If e’er he knows himself, he surely dies.’ 
  Long lived the dubious mother in suspense,
  Till time unriddled all the prophet’s sense. 
     Narcissus now his sixteenth year began,
  Just turned of boy, and on the verge of man;
  Many a friend the blooming youth caressed,
  Many a love-sick maid her flame confessed: 
  Such was his pride, in vain the friend caressed,
  The love-sick maid in vain her flame confessed.
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     Once, in the woods, as he pursued the chase,
  The babbling Echo had descried his face;
  She, who in others’ words her silence breaks,
  Nor speaks herself but when another speaks. 
  Echo was then a maid, of speech bereft,
  Of wonted speech; for though her voice was left,
  Juno a curse did on her tongue impose,
  To sport with every sentence in the close. 
  Full often, when the goddess might have caught
  Jove and her rivals in the very fault,
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  This nymph with subtle stories would delay
  Her coming, till the lovers slipped away. 
  The goddess found out the deceit in time,
  And then she cried, ’That tongue, for this thy crime,
  Which could so many subtle tales produce,
  Shall be hereafter but of little use.’ 
  Hence ’tis she prattles in a fainter tone,
  With mimic sounds, and accents not her own. 
     This love-sick virgin, overjoyed to find
  The boy alone, still followed him behind;
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  When, glowing warmly at her near approach,
  As sulphur blazes at the taper’s touch,
  She longed her hidden passion to reveal,
  And tell her pains, but had not words to tell: 
  She can’t begin, but waits for the rebound,
  To catch his voice, and to return the sound. 
  The nymph, when nothing could Narcissus move,
  Still dashed with blushes for her slighted love,
  Lived in the shady covert of the woods,
  In solitary caves and dark abodes;
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  Where pining wandered the rejected fair,
  Till harassed out, and worn away with care,
  The sounding skeleton, of blood bereft,
  Besides her bones and voice had nothing left. 
  Her bones are petrified, her voice is found
  In vaults, where still it doubles every sound.

THE STORY OF NARCISSUS.