Page:Virgil - The Georgics, Thomas Nevile, 1767.djvu/127

 Book IV. Virgins, and youths, untimely on their pyres

Stretcht out, sad object to their sorrowing Sires.

Crown'd with unsightly reeds, and black with mud,

Cocytus round them rolls his dolesome flood;

The Lake abhor'd spreads slow her wat'ry chains,

And Styx with nine wide channels fast constrains.

Amaze ev'n struck Death's dark Tartarean bounds,

And Fiends, whose hair snakes thrid in venom'd rounds:

Hell's Porter gaping his three throats supprest,

And the strain charm'd Ixion's wheel to rest.

And now had Orpheus, measuring back his way,

Escap'd all perils: to the realms of Day

Pressing his steps advanc'd Eurydice;

Of Pluto's consort such was the decree:

When strait a madness seiz'd the Lover's mind;

Venial, in Hell were faults of venial kind:

Just at the light he stopt; in thoughtless trance

Wrapt, and by passion quite o'erpow'r'd, a glance,

Turning, on his Eurydice he cast:

Vain from that moment every labour past;

The Tyrant's league was void, and thrice around

Avernus' pool was heard a sullen sound.

Orpheus! she cry'd, what Dæmon could inspire,

To curse us both, so frantic a desire? Again