Transformation of Niobe
Niobe, struck with horror at the magnitude of her calamities is changed into a stone.
Widow’d, and childless, lamentable state! A doleful sight, among the dead she sate; Harden’d with woes, a statue of despair, To ev’ry breath of wind unmoved her hair; Her cheek still reddening, but its colour dead, Faded her eyes, and set within her head; No more her pliant tongue its motion keeps, But stands congeal’d within her frozen lips; Stagnate and dull, within her purple veins,
Its current stopp’d, the lifeless blood remains; Her feet their usual offices refuse; Her arms and neck their graceful gestures lose: Action and life from ev’ry part are gone, And ev’n her entrails turn to solid stone: Yet still she weeps, and whirld by stormy winds, Borne through the air, her native country finds; There, fix’d, she stands upon a bleaky hill, There yet her marble cheeks eternal tears distil.