“But yonder far, lo! yonder does appear
An isle, a part to me for ever dear;
From that (it sailors Perimele name)
I doting, forced, by strength, a virgin’s fame.
Hippodamas’s passion grew so strong,
Gall’d with the abuse, and fretted at the wrong,
He cast his pregnant daughter from a rock;
I spread my waves beneath and broke the shock;
And, as her swimming weight my stream convey’d,
I sued for help divine, and thus I pray’d:
‘O powerful thou! whose trident does command
The realm of waters, which surround the land;
We sacred rivers, wheresoe’er begun,
End in thy lot, and to thy empire run;
With favour hear, and help with present aid
Her whom I bear, ’twas guilty I betray’d.
Yet, if her father had been just or mild,
He would have been less impious to his child;
In her, have pitied force in the abuse;
In me, admitted love for my excuse:
O let relief for her hard case be found,
Her, whom paternal rage expell’d from ground;
Her, whom paternal rage relentless drown’d.
Grant her some place, or change her to a place
Which I may ever clasp with my embrace.’
“His nodding head the sea’s great ruler bent,
And all his waters shook with his assent:
The nymph still swam, though with the fright distress’d;
I felt her heart leap trembling in her breast;
But, hard’ning soon, while I her pulse explore,
A crusting cased her stiff body o’er;
And, as accretions of new-cleaving soil
Enlarged the mass, the nymph became an isle.”