Page:Rape of Prosperine - Claudian (1854).djvu/44

 Sighs, fired by love, responsive to her sigh, And soothes with accents mild her misery. "Cease, cease, my Proserpine, from gloomy care, From terrors vain, and profitless despair. No common sceptre is it thine to grasp, No common husband's arms thy beauties clasp: 'Tis I, the Ruler of Saturnian race, Lord of the mighty void's illimitable space! Another world is ours, another day— Our stars as brilliant shed as pure a ray: Beneath the beams of our Elysian sun, Their pious course a happy people run— And through an endless age of gold we prove A blest continuance of the joys above. Soft meads shall still be thine—soft breezes blow O'er flowers more fair than on thy Henna grow; And, mid the darksome woods, a golden tree Its boughs' rich burthen consecrate to thee. Perpetual Autumn shall its stores renew Of glowing fruits—but these are scant and few, Compared with that immense, unending birth Of creatures, air-produced, or nursed on earth, With whom the glassy deeps of ocean teem, Who sport by myriads in the marsh and stream;