Flush in her cheeks, and sparkle in her eyes.
80
  She longs, she burns to clasp him in her arms,
  And looks, and sighs, and kindles at his charms. 
     Now all undressed upon the banks he stood,
  And clapped his sides and leaped into the flood: 
  His lovely limbs the silver waves divide,
  His limbs appear more lovely through the tide;
  As lilies shut within a crystal case,
  Receive a glossy lustre from the glass. 
  ‘He’s mine, he’s all my own,’ the Naiad cries,
  And flings off all, and after him she flies.
90
  And now she fastens on him as he swims,
  And holds him close, and wraps about his limbs. 
  The more the boy resisted, and was coy,
  The more she clipped and kissed the struggling boy. 
  So when the wriggling snake is snatched on high
  In eagle’s claws, and hisses in the sky,
  Around the foe his twirling tail he flings,
  And twists her legs, and writhes about her wings. 
  The restless boy still obstinately strove
  To free himself, and still refused her love.
100
  Amidst his limbs she kept her limbs entwined,
  ‘And why, coy youth,’ she cries, ’why thus unkind! 
  Oh may the gods thus keep us ever joined! 
  Oh may we never, never part again!’
  So prayed the nymph, nor did she pray in vain: 
  For now she finds him, as his limbs she pressed,
  Grow nearer still, and nearer to her breast;
  Till, piercing each the other’s flesh, they run
  Together, and incorporate in one: 
  Last in one face are both their faces joined,
110
  As when the stock and grafted twig combined
  Shoot up the same, and wear a common rind: 
  Both bodies in a single body mix,
  A single body with a double sex. 
     The boy, thus lost in woman, now surveyed
  The river’s guilty stream, and thus he prayed: 
  (He prayed, but wondered at his softer tone,
  Surprised to hear a voice but half his own:)
  You parent gods, whose heavenly names I bear,
  Hear your Hermaphrodite, and grant my prayer;
120
  Oh grant, that whomsoe’er these streams contain,
  If man he entered, he may rise again
  Supple, unsinewed, and but half a man! 
     The heavenly parents answered, from on high,
  Their two-shaped son, the double votary;
  Then gave a secret virtue to the flood,
  And tinged its source to make his wishes good.

TO HER ROYAL HIGHNESS THE PRINCESS OF WALES,[12]

WITH THE TRAGEDY OF CATO, NOV. 1714.

  The Muse that oft, with sacred raptures fired,
  Has generous thoughts of liberty inspired,
  And, boldly rising for Britannia’s laws,
  Engaged great Cato in her country’s cause,
  On you submissive waits, with hopes assured,
  By whom the mighty blessing stands secured,
  And all the glories that our age adorn,
  Are promised to a people yet unborn.