FAME is the spur that the clear spirit doth raise, (That last infirmity of noble mind)
To scorn delights and live laborious days;
But the fair guerdon when we hope to find,
And think to burst out into sudden blaze,
Comes the blind Fury with the abhorred shears
And clips the well-spun life.
O THOU who never yet of human wrong
Left the unbalanced scale, great Nemesis!
Thou who didst call the Furies from the abyss,
And round Orestes bade them howl and hiss,
For that unnatural retribution, — just,
Had it but been from hands less near, - in this,
Thy former realm, I call thee from the dust!
TARTARUS.-THE PUNISHMENT OF
WITH many a weary step, and many a groan,
Up the high hill he heaves a huge round stone;
The huge round stone, returning with a bound,
Thunders impetuous down, and smokes along the
ground.
THE PUNISHMENT OF TANTALUS.
HERE Tantalus tormented bends to drink,
While from his lips the refluent waters shrink.
"Quench me, ye cool, transparent rills!" he cries,
Opes his parched mouth, and rolls his hollow eyes;
In vain the stream alone his bosom laves,
And thirst consumes him 'mid surrounding waves.
THE PUNISHMENT OF SALMONEUS.
Be cautious, mortal, whom you imitate,
And, wise, remember vain Salmoneus' fate.
Through Grecian cities he, through Elis, drove,
And, flashing torches, deemed himself a Jove.
Madman! to think for thunder thus to pass
His chariot rattling o'er a bridge of brass.
Wrathful at this, from deep surrounding gloom,
The Olympian monarch seized the forky doom;
(No firebrand that, emitting smoky light,
But with impatient vengeance fiercely bright,)
He seized, and hurled it on the thundering elf,
Who straight vile ashes fell, his thunders and himself.
SUFFERINGS OF THE INFERNAL REGIONS ALLAYED BY THE POWER OF MUSIC.
WHEN through all the infernal bounds
Which flaming Phlegethon surrounds,
Love strong as death the poet led
To the pale regions of the dead,
What sounds were heard,
What scenes appeared
O'er all the dreary coasts!
Dreadful gleams,
Dismal screams,
Fires that glow,
Shrieks of woe,
Sullen moans,
Hollow groans,
And cries of tortured ghosts!
But hark! he strikes the golden lyre :
And see! the tortured ghosts respire ;
See shadowy forms advance!
Thy stone, O Sisyphus, stands still,
Ixion rests upon his wheel,
And the pale spectres dance.
The Furies sink upon their iron beds,
While snakes uncurled hang listening round their
THE FURIES, ALECTO, TISIPHONE, AND MEGERA.
THREE dreadful sisters, down whose temples rolled
Their hair of snakes, in many a hissing fold;
As scattering horror o'er the dreary land,
Near to the lofty gates of hell they stand.
ABHORRED Styx, the flood of deadly hate,
Sad Acheron, of sorrow black and deep;
Cocytus, named of lamentation loud
Heard on the rueful stream; fierce Phlegethon,
Whose waves of torrent fire inflame with rage;
Far off from these a slow and silent stream,
Lethe, the river of oblivion, rolls
Her watery labyrinth, whereof who drinks
Forthwith his former state and being forgets,
Forgets both joy and grief, pleasure and pain.
Of Enna, where Proserpine gathering flowers, Herself a fairer flower, by gloomy Dis
Was gathered, which cost Ceres all that pain
To seek her through the world, ...
|