At once she fled to her defensive arms;

Conn’d o’er the tales her maiden aunt had told,

And, statue like, was motionless and cold:

From prayer of love, like that Pygmalion pray’d,

Ere the hard stone became the yielding maid,

A different change in this chaste nymph ensued,

And turn’d to stone the breathing flesh and blood:

Whatever youth described his wounded heart,

“He came to rob her, and she scorn’d his art;

And who of raptures once presumed to speak,