But when, through all the infernal bounds{7} Which flaming Phlegethon surrounds, Love, strong as death,{8} the poet led To the pale nations of the dead, What sounds were heard, What scenes appear'd, O'er all the dreary coast! Dreadful gleams, Dismal screams, Fires that glow, Shrieks of woe, Sullen moans, Hollow groans, And cries of tortured ghosts! But, hark! he strikes the golden lyre; And see! the tortured ghosts respire, See, shady forms{9} advance! Thy stone, O Sisyphus, stands still,{10} Ixion rests upon his wheel, And the pale spectres dance; The Furies sink upon their iron beds, And snakes uncurl'd hang listening round their heads. V. By the streams that ever flow, By the fragrant winds that blow O'er the Elysian flowers; By those happy souls who dwell In yellow meads of asphodel, Or amaranthine bowers; By the heroes' armed shades, Glittering through the gloomy glades, By the youths that died for love, Wandering in the myrtle grove, Restore, restore Eurydice to life: Oh take the husband, or return the wife! He sung, and hell{11} consented To hear the poet's prayer; Stern Proserpine relented, And gave him back the fair. Thus song could prevail O'er death and o'er hell, A conquest how hard and how glorious! Though fate had fast bound her With Styx nine times round her, Yet music and love were victorious.{12} VI. But soon, too soon, the lover turns his eyes: Again she falls, again she dies, she dies! How wilt thou now the fatal sisters move? No crime was thine, if 'tis no crime to love. Now under hanging mountains, Beside the falls of fountains, Or where Hebrus wanders, Rolling in meanders, All alone, Unheard, unknown, He makes his moan; And calls her ghost, For ever, ever, ever lost! Now with furies surrounded,{13} Despairing, confounded, He trembles, he glows, Amidst Rhodope's{14} snows: See, wild as the winds, o'er the desert he flies; Hark! Hæmus resounds with the Bacchanals' cries-- Ah see, he dies! Yet even in death Eurydice he sung, Eurydice still trembled on his tongue, Eurydice the woods, Eurydice the floods, Eurydice the rocks, and hollow mountains rung. VII.