The wayward sire frequents his cool retreat. } His eyes with heavy slumber overcast-- With force invade his limbs, and bind him fast. Thus surely bound, yet be not over bold: The slippery god will try to loose his hold, And various forms assume, to cheat thy sight, And with vain images of beasts affright; With foamy tusks he seems[23] a bristly boar, Or imitates the lion's angry roar; Breaks out in crackling flames to shun thy snares, A dragon hisses, or a tiger stares; Or, with a wile thy caution to betray, In fleeting streams attempts to slide away. But thou, the more he varies forms, beware To strain his fetters with a stricter care. Till, tiring all his arts, he turns again To his true shape, in which he first was seen." This said, with nectar she her son anoints, Infusing vigour through his mortal joints: Down from his head the liquid odours ran; He breathed of heaven, and looked above a man. Within a mountain's hollow womb, there lies A large recess, concealed from human eyes, Where heaps of billows, driven by wind and tide, } In form of war, their watery ranks divide, } And there, like centries set, without the mouth abide: } A station safe for ships, when tempests roar, A silent harbour, and a covered shore. Secure within resides the various god, And draws a rock upon his dark abode. Hither with silent steps, secure from sight, } The goddess guides her son, and turns him from the light: } Herself, involved in clouds, precipitates her flight. } 'Twas noon; the sultry Dog-star from the sky Scorched Indian swains; the rivelled grass was dry; The sun with flaming arrows pierced the flood, And, darting to the bottom, baked the mud; When weary Proteus, from the briny waves, Retired for shelter to his wonted caves. His finny flocks about their shepherd play, And, rolling round him, spirt the bitter sea. Unwieldily they wallow first in ooze, Then in the shady covert seek repose. Himself, their herdsman, on the middle mount, Takes of his mustered flocks a just account. So, seated on a rock, a shepherd's groom Surveys his evening flocks returning home, When lowing calves and bleating lambs, from far, Provoke the prowling wolf to nightly war. The occasion offers, and the youth complies: For scarce the weary god had closed his eyes, When, rushing on with shouts, he binds in chains The drowzy prophet, and his limbs constrains. He, not unmindful of his usual art, First in dissembled fire attempts to part: Then roaring beasts, and running streams, he tries, And wearies all his miracles of lies: But, having shifted every form to 'scape, Convinced of conquest, he resumed his shape, And thus, at length, in human accent spoke:-- "Audacious youth! what madness could provoke A mortal man to invade a sleeping god? What business brought thee to my dark abode?"