Make solid land, what ocean was before
And far from strands are shells of fishes found,
And rusty anchors fix’d on mountain ground:
And what were fields before, now wash’d and worn
By falling floods from high, to valleys turn,
And crumbling still descend to level lands;
And lakes, and trembling bogs, are barren sands:
And the parch’d desert floats in streams unknown,
Wondering to drink of waters not her own.
“ ‘Here nature living fountains opes; and there
Seals up the wombs, where living fountains were:
Or earthquakes stop their ancient course, and bring
Diverted streams to feed a distant spring.
So Lycus, swallow’d up, is seen no more,
But far from thence knocks out another door.
Thus Erasmus dives; and blind in earth
Runs on, and gropes his way to second birth,
Starts up in Argos’ meads, and shakes his locks
Around the fields, and fattens all the flocks.
So Mysus by another way is led,
And, grown a river, now disdains his head;
Forgets his humble birth, his name forsakes,
And the proud title of Caicus takes.
Large Amenane, impure with yellow sands,
Runs rapid often, and as often stands;
And here he threats the drunken fields to drown;
And there his dugs deny to give their liquor down.
“ ‘Anigros once did wholesome draughts afford,
But now his deadly waters are abhorr’d:
Since, hurt by Hercules, as fame resounds,
The centaurs in his current wash’d their wounds.
The streams of Hypanis are sweet no more,
But brackish lose the taste they had before.
Antissa, Pharos, Tyre, in seas were pent,
Once isles, but now increase the continent;
While the Leucadian coast, main land before,
By rushing seas is sever’d from the shore.
So Zancle to the Italian earth was tied,
And men once walk’d where ships at anchor ride;
Till Neptune overlook’d the narrow way,
And in disdain pour’d in the conquering sea.
“ ‘Two cities, that adorn’d the Achaian ground,
Buris, and Helice, no more are found,
But whelm’d beneath a lake, are sunk and drown’d;
And boatmen, through the crystal water, show
To wondering passengers the walls below.
“ ‘Near Troezen stands a hill, exposed in air
To winter winds of leafy shadows bare:
This once was level ground: but (strange to tell)
The included vapours, that in caverns dwell,
Labouring with colic pangs, and close confined,
In vain sought issue for the rumbling wind:
Yet still they heaved for vent, and heaving still
Enlarged the concave, and shot up the hill;
As breath extends a bladder, or the skins
Of goats are blown to enclose the hoarded wines:
The mountain yet retains a mountain’s face,
And gather’d rubbish heals the hollow space.
Of many wonders which I heard, or knew,
Retrenching most, I will relate but few:
What, are not springs with qualities opposed,
Endued at seasons, and at seasons lost?
Thrice in a day thine, Ammon, change their form,
Cold at high noon, at morn and evening warm:
Thine, Athaman, will kindle wood, if thrown
On the piled earth, and in the waning moon.
The Thracians have a stream, if any try
The taste, his harden’d bowels petrify;
Whate’er it touches, it converts to stones,
And makes a marble pavement where it runs.
“ ‘Crathis, and Sybaris, her sister flood,
That slide through our Calabrian neighbour wood,
With gold and amber die the shining hair,
And thither youth resort: (for who would not be fair?)
“ ‘But stranger virtues yet in streams we find,
Some change not only bodies, but the mind:
Who has not heard of Salmacis obscene,
Whose waters into women soften men?
Or Aethiopian lakes, which turn the brain
To madness, or in heavy sleep constrain?
Clytorian streams the love of wine expel,
(Such is the virtue of the abstemious well,)
Whether the colder nymph, that rules the flood,
Extinguishes, and balks the drunken god;
Or that Melampus (so have some assured)
When the mad Proetides 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 us with wine, and sees with double sight;
His heels too heavy, and his head too light.
Ladon, once Pheneus, 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 steer’d
Between their straits, and their collision fear’d;
They swam where now they sit; and firmly join’d,
Secure of rooting up, resist the wind.
Nor Aetna, 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 require
Inlets for air, and outlets for her fires;
When tortured with convulsive fits she shakes,
That motion choke the vent, till other vent she makes:
Or when the winds in hollow caves are closed,
And subtle spirits find that way opposed,
They toss up flints in air; the flints that hide
The seeds of fire, thus toss’d in air, collide,
Kindling the sulphur, till the fuel spent,
The cave is cool’d, 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
Famish’d 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’d themselves to birds by magic skill:
Smear’d over with an oil of wondrous 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 slaughter’d 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,
To wasps, and hornets of the warrior kind.
Cut from a crab his crooked claws, and hide
The rest in earth, a scorpion thence will glide,
And shoot his sting; his tail in circles toss’d
Refers the limbs his backward father lost;
And worms, that stretch on leaves their filmy loom,
Crawl from their bags, and butterflies become.
Ev’n slime begets the
