Their legs grow fixed as trunks, their arms as boughs
Extend, and upward round them creeps a bark
That gradual folds the form entire, save yet
The head and mouth, that to their mother shrieks
For help. What help is hers to give? Now here,
Now there she rushes, frantic, kissing this
Or that while yet she can, and strives to rend
Their bodies from the clasping bark, and tears
The fresh leaves from their sprouting heads, and sees,
Aghast, red drops as from some wound distil.