The queen with faltering speech he thut addrest:
"O, fill with gold thy true adorer's chest!"
"Behold, said she, and wav'd her powerful hand,
"Where yon rich hills in glittering order stand:
"There load thy coffer with the golden store;
"Then bear it full away, and ask no more."
With eager steps he took his hasty way,
Where the bright coin in heaps unnumber'd lay;
Scoop'd the gay dross, and bent beneath the toil.
But bitter was his anguish, to behold
The coffer widen, and its sides unfold:
And every time he heap'd the darling ore,
His greedy chest grew larger than before;
Till, silent with pain, and falling o'er his hoard.
With his sharp steel his maddening breast he gor'd:
On the lov'd heap he call his closing eye,
Contented on a golden couch to die.
A stripling, with the fair adventure pleas'd,
Stepp'd forward, and the massy coffer seiz'd;
But
