John Conington

Thou too take courage, wealth despise, And fit thee to ascend the skies, Nor be a poor man's courtesies Rejected or disdained.

Terror wings his flight.

Sleep gives his name to portals twain; One all of horn, they say, Through which authentic spectres gain Quick exit into day, And one which bright with ivory gleams, Whence Pluto sends delusive dreams.

But, Roman, thou, do thou control The nations far and wide; Be this thy genius, to impose The rule of peace on vanquished foes, Show pity to the humbled soul, And crush the sons of pride.

Each for himself, we all sustain The durance of our ghostly pain; Then to Elysium we repair, The few, and breathe this blissful air.

They reach the realms of tranquil bliss. Green spaces folded in with trees, A paradise of pleasances.

No, had I e'en a hundred tongues, A hundred mouths, and iron lungs, Those types of guilt I could not show, Nor tell the forms of penal woe.

This to a tyrant master sold His native land for cursed gold.

A lethargy of sleep, Most like to death, so calm, so deep.

No longer dream that human prayer The will of Fate can overbear.

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,

Along the illimitable shade Darkling and lone their way they made, Through the vast kingdom of the dead, An empty void, though tenanted: So travellers in a forest move With but the uncertain moon above,

Now for a heart that scorns dismay: Now for a soul prepared.

Back, ye unhallowed!

The journey down to the abyss Is prosperous and light: The palace gates of gloomy Dis Stand open day and night: But upward to retrace the way And pass into the light of day

War, dreadful war, and Tiber flood I see incarnadined with blood.

My chief, let Fate cry on or back, 'Tis ours to follow, nothing slack: Whate'er betide, he only cures The stroke of Fortune who endures.

'To die! and unrevenged!' she said, 'Yet let me die.'

My life is lived, and I have played The part that Fortune gave.

A woman's will Is changeful and uncertain still.

Curst Love! what lengths of tyrant scorn Wreak'st not on those of woman born?

While memory lasts and pulses beat, The thought of Dido shall be sweet.

"From me you fly! Ah! let me crave, By these poor tears, that hand you gave— Since, parting with my woman's pride, My madness leaves me nought beside— By that our wedlock, by the rite Which, but begun, could yet unite,

She calls it marriage now; such name She chooses to conceal her shame.