Beneath the Lybian skies, a blissful isle,
By Triton's floods encircled, Nysa lay.
Here youthful Nature wanton'd in delights,
And here the guardians of the bounteous horn,
While it was now the infancy of time,
Nor yet th' uncultivated globe had learn'd
To smile, Eucarpé, Dapsiléa dwelt,
With all the nymphs, whose secret care had nurs'd
The eldest Bacchus. From the flow'ry shore
A turf-clad valley opens, and along
Its verdure mild the willing feet allures;
While on its sloping sides ascends the pride
Of hoary groves, high-arching o'er the vale
With day-rejecting gloom. The solemn shade
Half round a spacious lawn at length expands,
Clos'd by a tow'ring cliff, whose forehead glows
With azure, purple, and ten thousand dyes,
From its resplendent fragments beaming round;
Nor less irradiate colours from beneath
On every side an ample grot reflects,
As down the perforated rock the sun
Pours his meridian blaze! rever'd abode
Of Nysa's nymphs, with every plant attir'd,
That wears undying green, refresh'd with rills
From ever-living fountains, and enrich'd
With all Pomona's bloom: unfading flowers
Glow on the mead, and spicy shrubs perfume
With inexhausted sweets the cooling gale,
Which breathes incessant there; while every bird
Of tuneful note his gay or plaintive song
Blends with the warble of meandring streams,
Which o'er their pebbled channels murm'ring lave
The fruit-invested hills, that rise around.
The gentle Nereids to this calm recess
Phoenice bear; nor Dapsiléa bland,
Nor good Eucarpé, studious to obey
Great Neptune's will, their hospitable care
Refuse; nor long Lucina is invok'd.
Soon as the wondrous infant sprung to day,
Earth rock'd around; with all their nodding woods,
And streams reverting to their troubled source,
The mountain shook, while Lybia's neighb'ring god,
Mysterious Ammon, from his hollow cell
With deep-resounding accent thus to heaven,
To earth, and sea, the mighty birth proclaim'd.