Bright bands of youth with tender maidens stray,
Led by the love-god all delights to share;
And each fond lover death once snatched away
Winds an immortal myrtle in his hair.
Far, far from such, the dreadful realms of gloom
By those black streams of Hades circled round,
Where viper-tressed, fierce ministers of doom,--
The Furies drive lost souls from bound to bound.
The doors of brass, and dragon-gate of Hell,
Grim Cerberus guards, and frights the phantoms back:
Ixion, who by Juno's beauty fell,
Gives his frail body to the whirling rack.
Stretched o'er nine roods, lies Tityos accursed,
The vulture at his vitals feeding slow;
There Tantalus, whose bitter, burning thirst
The fleeting waters madden as they flow.
There Danaus' daughters Venus' anger feel,
Filling their urns at Lethe all in vain;--
_And there's the wretch who would my Delia steal,
And wish me absent on a long campaign!_
O chaste and true! In thy still house shall sit
The careful crone who guards thy virtuous bed;
She tells thee tales, and when the lamps are lit,
Reels from her distaff the unending thread.
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