To be with such a man in marriage bound.-- Awhile they whisper; then, to Jove addressed, Philemon thus prefers their joint request:-- We crave to serve before your sacred shrine, And offer at your altars rites divine, And since not any action of our life Has been polluted with domestic strife, We beg one hour of death; that neither she, With widow's tears, may live to bury me, Nor weeping I, with withered arms, may bear My breathless Baucis to the sepulchre. The godheads sign their suit. They run their race In the same tenour all the appointed space; Then, when their hour was come, while they relate These past adventures at the temple-gate, Old Baucis is by old Philemon seen Sprouting with sudden leaves of sprightly green; Old Baucis looked where old Philemon stood, And saw his lengthened arms a sprouting wood; New roots their fastened feet begin to bind, Their bodies stiffen in a rising rind; Then, ere the bark above their shoulders grew, They give and take at once their last adieu; At once, farewell, O faithful spouse, they said; At once the encroaching rinds their closing lips invade. Even yet, an ancient Tyanæan shows A spreading oak, that near a linden grows; The neighbourhood confirm the prodigy, Grave men, not vain of tongue, or like to lie. I saw myself the garlands on their boughs, And tablets hung for gifts of granted vows; And offering fresher up, with pious prayer, } The good, said I, are God's peculiar care, } And such as honour heaven, shall heavenly honour share. } FOOTNOTES: [25] Called in more modern times a _settee_. The old word, _settle_, occurs in the first part of Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress;" where Christian, at the bottom of the Hill of Difficulty, finds an arbour with a _settle_. [26] To whom the olive was sacred. THE FABLE OF IPHIS AND IANTHE. FROM THE NINTH BOOK OF OVID'S METAMORPHOSES.