Attention thus to everything you meet;
    You know the number’s great, and time is fleet.” 
    More naked prisoners this triumph had
    Than Xerxes soldiers in his army led: 
    And stretched further than my sight could reach;
    Of several countries, and of differing speech. 
    One of a thousand were not known to me,
    Yet might those few make a large history. 
    Perseus was one; and well you know the way
    How he was catched by Andromeda: 
    She was a lovely brownet, black her hair
    And eyes.  Narcissus, too, the foolish fair,
    Who for his own love did himself destroy;
    He had so much, he nothing could enjoy. 
    And she, who for his loss, deep sorrow’s slave. 
    Changed to a voice, dwells in a hollow cave. 
    Iphis was there, who hasted his own fate,
    He loved another, but himself did hate;
    And many more condemn’d like woes to prove,
    Whose life was made a curse by hapless love. 
    Some modern lovers in my mind remain,
    But those to reckon here were needless pain: 
    The two, whose constant loves for ever last,
    On whom the winds wait while they build their nest;
    For halcyon days poor labouring sailors please. 
    And in rough winter calm the boisterous seas. 
    Far off the thoughtful AEsacus, in quest
    Of his Hesperia, finds a rocky rest,
    Then diveth in the floods, then mounts i’ th’ air;
    And she who stole old Nisus’ purple hair
    His cruel daughter, I observed to fly: 
    Swift Atalanta ran for victory,
    But three gold apples, and a lovely face,
    Slack’d her quick paces, till she lost the race;
    She brought Hippomanes along, and joy’d
    That he, as others, had not been destroyed,
    But of the victory could singly boast. 
    I saw amidst the vain and fabulous host,
    Fair Galatea lean’d on Acis’ breast;
    Rude Polyphemus’ noise disturbs their rest. 
    Glaucus alone swims through the dangerous seas,
    And missing her who should his fancy please,
    Curseth the cruel’s Love transform’d her shape. 
    Canens laments that Picus could not ’scape
    The dire enchantress; he in Italy
    Was once a king, now a pied bird; for she
    Who made him such, changed not his clothes nor name,
    His princely habit still appears the same. 
    Egeria, while she wept, became a well: 
    Scylla (a horrid rock by Circe’s spell)
    Hath made infamous the Sicilian strand. 
    Next, she who holdeth in her trembling hand
    A guilty knife, her right hand writ her name. 
    Pygmalion next, with his live mistress came. 
    Sweet Aganippe, and Castalia have
    A thousand more; all there sung by the brave
    And deathless poets, on their fair banks placed;
    Cydippe by an apple fool’d at last.

    ANNA HUME.

PART III