Thee, as it sunk to rest, was wont to chant.
The jaws of Tænarus too, portals profound
Of Pluto, and the grove with murky dread
All darkling, he did enter, and approach
The Manes, and the terror-king, and hearts
Which know not how to melt at human pray'rs.
But with the strain thick rous'd from deepest

seats

Of Erebus, the shades began to throng

Thin filmy shades-and phantoms of the dead
Of light bereft, as num'rous as the swarms
Of birds that bury them in woods, when eve,
Or winter show'r from mountains drives them
down-

Matrons, and men, and corses life-defunct

Of high-soul'd heroes, and unwedded maids,
And youths in prime of life laid on their pyres
Before their parents' faces, whom around
Black ooze, and Cocyt's grim unsightly reeds,
And lake unlovely with its sullen wave
Binds fast, and Styx nine times between them
pour'd

Imprisons. Yea, the palace halls themselves
Amazed stood, and Death's profoundest hell,
And they that bear the bluish snakes enwreath'd
Their locks among the Furies; and upon him,
Gazing with open mouth, did Cerberus

Keep fix'd his triple jaws; and in the air
Stopp'd still the wheeling of Ixion's disk.
And now his foot recalling, ev'ry hap
Had he escaped, and again restor❜d
Eurydice to upper air was passing,
Following behind (for Proserpine this law
Had fix'd), when sudden thoughtlessness sur-
pris'd

The unwary lover-one for pardon meet,

If Manes knew to pardon. Sudden he stopped,
And back upon Eurydice his regain'd,

E'en now beneath the light, mindless, alas!
And soul-subdu'd, he gaz'd. There all his toil
Was squander'd, and the ruthless tyrant's com-
pacts

Broken; and thrice a crash was heard throughout
The Avernian lakes. For her, Who," cries

The wretched one, and thee, Orpheus, hath kill'd?

What frenzy this so wild? Lo once again
The ranc'rous fates are summoning me back,
And sleep is whelming close my swimming eyes.
And now, farewell! Borne am I off, enwrapp'd
In tenfold night; and pow'rless unto thee
Stretching my hands, alas, no longer thine!"
She spoke, and from his eyes, sudden as smoke
With the thin air emblended, she did flee
A different path; nor him, all vainly grasping
At shades, and longing many a word to utter,
Saw she thenceforth. Nor did Hell's ferryman
Permit her more the barrier-lake to pass.
What might he do? Whither himself betake,
His spouse twice ravish'd from him? With what
wail

The Manes-with what vow the gods persuade ?
She now was floating in the Stygian bark

Death cold. For him, throughout sev'n livelong months,

In order due, beneath a skiey rock,

By desert Strymon's wave, they say he wept, And these his woes 'neath icy caves outpour'd, Soothing the tigers with his minstrel spell, And charming oaks to follow. E'en as 'neath A poplar bow'r, lamenting, Philomel

Wails her lost offspring, whom the ploughman hard

Marking for prey has plunder'd from their nest
While callow still. But she the livelong night
Weeps on, and perched upon a spray, renews
Her piteous dirge, and fills the region wide
With melancholy wails. No thought of love,
No bridal minstrelsy his spirit swerv'd.
Alone the glaciers of the northern zone,
And snow-chok'd Tanais, and fields ne'er stripp'd
Of frost Riphæan he was wont to pace,
His 'reft Eurydice and Pluto's boons

Made profitless bewailing. By which task
Of duty spurn'd, the Cicon's matrons midst
Rituals of gods, and midnight Bacchus' orgies,
Tore the youth limb from limb, and scatter'd him
O'er the broad fields. Then also, while his head
Pluck'd from his marble neck agrian Hebrus
Was rolling, as it bore it down the gulph
Of the mid stream-Eurydice, his voice
And ice-cold tongue-ah! poor Eurydice,
With his fast fleeting breath did still invoke
Eurydice, throughout the river's length,
The banks re-echoed." Thus far Proteus spoke
And with a sudden plunge consign'd himself
Into the ocean depths, and where he plung'd,
The foaming wave toss'd whirling 'neath his head.
But not Cyrene. For uncalled she thus
Address'd the youth in terror: "O, my son,
It is allowed thee to discharge thy cares
Distressful from thy soul. Here of thy plague
Lies the whole cause. Hence did the nymphs,

with whom

She in the depth of groves the dance pursu❜d,
Woful destruction send upon thy bees.

Do thou, in suppliant guise, thy gifts present,

Beseeching peace; and the Napaan maids,
Won easily, adore; for they will grant
Indulgence to thy vows, and all their ire
Remit. But what the fashion of thy pray'r,
First will I duly tell. Four chosen bulls

Of passing shape, which now for thee are browsing

The crests of green Lycæum, do thou choose,
And heifers full as many, with a neck
Untouched by yoke.

For these four altar shrines,
Close by the heav'nly maidens' high dom'd fanes
Construct, and bid the hallow'd blood gush down
From out their necks; and in a leafy grove
The heifers' carcases themselves abandon.
Then when the ninth Aurora hath display'd
Her orient dawn, as fun'ral gifts of Orpheus,
Poppies in Lethe steeped thou shalt show'r;
Eurydice, now pacified, shalt worship

With slaughter'd calf, and slay an ink-black sheep,
And then the grove revisit." No delay;
His mother's precepts straight he puts in train;
Unto the shrines he comes; the altars rears
As bade by her. Four bulls of passing form
Pick'd from the herd he leads along, and heifers
As many, with a neck by yoke untouch❜d.
Then when the ninth Aurora had brought on
Her dawnings, Orpheus' funeral gifts he show'rs,
And then the grove revisits. Here, in sooth,
A prodigy they view, sudden, and full

Of marvel to be told- from the whole womb,
Throughout the welt'ring entrails of the kine-
Bees whizzing out, and from the riven sides
In effervescence swarming—and thick clouds
Trailing immense, and streaming now together
Upon a tree's high crest, and drooping down
A cluster from the lithe elastic boughs:

P

These strains upon the husbandry of fields,
And cattle was I chanting, and on trees
While mighty Cæsar at the deep Euphrates
Thunders in war, and victor gives his laws
O'er states, his willing vassals, and aspires
To tread the path to Heav'n. In that same hour
Me Virgil, sweet Parthenope was nursing,
While I was revelling in the studious arts
Of ease unknown to fame-I who did make
The shepherd's lays my toys, and in my prime
Presumptuous grown, thee, Tityrus, did sing
Beneath the spreading beech tree's canopied
shade.

THE END.

LONDON:

Printed by A. SPOTTIS WOODE,

New-Street-Square.