Page:Paradise Lost (1667).djvu/70

Book 2.  Where Armies whole have unk: the parching Air Burns frore, and cold performs th’ effect of Fire. Thither by harpy-footed Furies hail’d, At certain revolutions all the damn’d Are brought: and feel by turns the bitter change Of fierce extreams, extreams by change more fierce, 600 From Beds of raging Fire to tarve in Ice Thir oft Ethereal warmth, and there to pine Immovable, infixt, and frozen round, Periods of time, thence hurried back to fire. They ferry over this Lethean Sound Both to and fro, thir orrow to augment, And wih and truggle, as they pass, to reach The tempting tream, with one mall drop to looe In weet forgetfulnes all pain and woe, All in one moment, and o neer the brink; 610 But fate withtands, and to oppoe th’ attempt Medua with Gorgonian terror guards The Ford, and of it elf the water flies All tate of living wight, as once it fled The lip of Tantalus. Thus roving on In confus’d march forlorn, th’ adventrous Bands With huddring horror pale, and eyes agat View’d firt thir lamentable lot, and found No ret: through many a dark and drearie Vaile They pas’d, and many a Region dolorous, 620 O’re many a Frozen, many a Fierie Alpe, Rocks, Caves, Lakes, Fens, Bogs, Dens, and hades of death, A Univere of death, which God by cure Created evil, for evil only good, Where all life dies, death lives, and nature breeds, Pervere, all montrous, all prodigious things,