By melancholy Styx; nor omen sad

Was wanting: sudden tears obscured her eyes,

And dimm'd the moisten'd colors of the web.

And now, with undulating line, her hand Began to trace the limits of the deep,-When the rent filaments, and woof reversed, Declared the presence of th' etherial pow'rs:

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Led on the train of night, whose gentle sway

Sheds sweet repose upon the wearied world.

And now prepared to seek the upper skies, Warn'd by the voice of Jove, Pluto arose ; And stern Alecto brings the dusky steeds

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That pasture by Cocytus' fiery banks,
In shades of Erebus, and drink the wave
Of stagnant Lethe, breathing thence around
Oblivious vapors; Orphneus, glaring stern;
Ethon, more swift than dart; Nycteus, pride
Of all th' infernal race; and, Pluto's care,

Alastor wild; yoked at the gates they stand,

And fiercely breathe, and shake their dreadful manes,
Expecting, in the moru, a glorious prize.

END OF BOOK I

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THE

RAPE OF PROSERPINE.

BOOK II.