But wants a voice to call Lucina's aid; The bending bole sends out a hollow sound, And trickling tears fall thicker on the ground. The mild Lucina came uncalled, and stood Beside the struggling boughs, and heard the groaning wood; Then reached her midwife-hand, to speed the throes, And spoke the powerful spells that babes to birth disclose. The bark divides, the living load to free, And safe delivers the convulsive tree. The ready nymphs receive the crying child, And wash him in the tears the parent plant distilled. They swathed him with their scarfs; beneath him spread The ground with herbs; with roses raised his head. The lovely babe was born with every grace; Even envy must have praised so fair a face: Such was his form, as painters, when they show Their utmost art, on naked loves bestow; And that their arms no difference might betray, Give him a bow, or his from Cupid take away. Time glides along, with undiscovered haste, The future but a length behind the past, So swift are years; the babe, whom just before His grandsire got, and whom his sister bore; The drop, the thing which late the tree inclosed; And late the yawning bark to life exposed; A babe, a boy, a beauteous youth appears;[29] And lovelier than himself at riper years. Now to the queen of love he gave desires, And, with her pains, revenged his mother's fires. FOOTNOTES: [29] Adonis. CEYX AND ALCYONE. OUT OF THE TENTH BOOK OF OVID'S METAMORPHOSES. CONNECTION OF THIS FABLE WITH THE FORMER. _Ceyx, the son of Lucifer, (the morning star,) and king of Trachin, in Thessaly, was married to Alcyone, daughter to Æolus, god of the winds. Both the husband and the wife loved each other with an entire affection. Dædalion, the elder brother of Ceyx, whom he succeeded, having been turned into a falcon by Apollo, and Chione, Dædalion's daughter, slain by Diana. Ceyx prepares a ship to sail to Claros, there to consult the oracle of Apollo, and (as Ovid seems to intimate) to enquire how the anger of the Gods might be atoned._