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Rh At Orcus' portals hold their lair

Wild Sorrow and avenging Care;

And pale Diseases cluster there,

And pleasureless Decay,

Foul Penury, and Fears that kill,

And Hunger, counsellor of ill,

A ghastly presence they:

Suffering and Death the threshold keep,

And with them Death's blood-brother, Sleep:

Ill Joys with their seducing spells

And deadly War are at the door;

The Furies couch in iron cells,

And Discord maddens and rebels;

Her snake-locks hiss, her wreaths drip gore.

Full in the midst an aged elm

Broods darkly o'er the shadowy realm:

There dream-land phantoms rest the wing,

Men say, and 'neath its foliage cling.

And many monstrous shapes beside

Within the infernal gates abide;

There Centaurs, Scyllas, fish and maid,

There Briareus' hundred-handed shade,

Chimæra armed with flame,

Gorgons and Harpies make their den,

With the foul pest of Lerna's fen,

And Geryon's triple frame.

Alarmed, Æneas grasps his brand

And points it at the advancing band;

And were no Sibyl there

To warn him that the goblin swarm

Are empty shades of hollow form,

He would be rushing on the foe,

And cleaving with an idle blow

The unsubstantial air.