(Such is the virtue of the abstemious well,) Whether the colder nymph, that rules the flood, Extinguishes, and baulks the drunken God; Or that Melampus (so have some assured) When the mad Prœtides with charms he cured, And powerful herbs, both charms and simples cast Into the sober spring, where still their virtues last. Unlike effects Lyncestis will produce; Who drinks his waters, though with moderate use, Reels as with wine, and sees with double sight, His heels too heavy, and his head too light. Ladon, once Pheneos, an Arcadian stream, (Ambiguous in the effects, as in the name,) By day is wholesome beverage; but is thought By night infected, and a deadly draught. Thus running rivers, and the standing lake, Now of these virtues, now of those partake. Time was (and all things time and fate obey) When fast Ortygia floated on the sea; Such were Cyanean isles, when Typhis steered Betwixt their straits, and their collision feared; They swam where now they sit; and, firmly joined, Secure of rooting up, resist the wind. Nor Ætna, vomiting sulphureous fire, Will ever belch; for sulphur will expire, The veins exhausted of the liquid store; Time was she cast no flames; in time will cast no more. For, whether earth's an animal, and air Imbibes, her lungs with coolness to repair, And what she sucks remits, she still requires Inlets for air, and outlets for her fires; When tortured with convulsive fits she shakes, That motion chokes the vent, till other vent she makes; Or when the winds in hollow caves are closed, And subtile spirits find that way opposed, They toss up flints in air; the flints that hide The seeds of fire, thus tossed in air, collide, Kindling the sulphur, till, the fuel spent, The cave is cooled, and the fierce winds relent. Or whether sulphur, catching fire, feeds on Its unctuous parts, till, all the matter gone, The flames no more ascend; for earth supplies The fat that feeds them; and when earth denies That food, by length of time consumed, the fire, Famished for want of fuel, must expire. A race of men there are, as fame has told, Who, shivering, suffer Hyperborean cold, Till, nine times bathing in Minerva's lake, Soft feathers to defend their naked sides they take. 'Tis said, the Scythian wives (believe who will) Transform themselves to birds by magic skill; Smeared over with an oil of wonderous might, That adds new pinions to their airy flight. But this by sure experiment we know, That living creatures from corruption grow: Hide in a hollow pit a slaughtered steer, Bees from his putrid bowels will appear; Who, like their parents, haunt the fields, and bring Their honey-harvest home, and hope another spring. The warlike steed is multiplied, we find,