Soon as the mother’s toils were o’er,
When she had finished her career,
And sought the ravished maid no more,
To caves where drifted snows appear,
By Ida’s nymphs frequented, did she pass,
And threw herself in sorrow lost,
On rocks and herbage crusted o’er with frost,
Despoiled the wasted champaign of its grass,
Rendered the peasant’s tillage vain,
Consuming a dispeopled land
With meagre famine; Spring at her command
Denied the flocks that sickened on the plain
The leafy tendrils of the vine;
Whole cities died, no victims bled,
No frankincense perfumed Heaven’s vacant shrine;
Nor burst the current from the Spring’s obstructed head.