Down the crampt corridor, far sunk from day, On hands and bended knees he gropes his way, Swims roaring streams, thro dens of serpents crawls, Descends deep wells and clambers flaming walls; Now thwart his lane a lake of sulphur gleams, With fiery waves and suffocating steams; He dares not shun the ford; for full in view Fierce lions rush behind and force him thro. Long ladders heaved on end, with banded eyes He mounts, and mounts, and seems to gain the skies; Then backward falling, tranced with deadly fright, Finds his own feet and stands restored to light. Here all dread sights of torture round him rise; Lash'd on a wheel, a whirling felon flies; A wretch, with members chain'd and liver bare, Writhes and disturbs the vulture feasting there: One strains to roll his rock, recoiling still; One, stretch'd recumbent o'er a limpid rill, Burns with devouring thirst; his starting eyes, Swell'd veins and frothy lips and piercing cries Accuse the faithless eddies, as they shrink And keep him panting still, still bending o'er the brink. At last Elysium to his ravisht eyes Spreads flowery fields and opens golden skies; Breathes Orphean music thro the dancing groves, Trains the gay troops of Beauties, Graces, Loves, Lures his delirious sense with sweet decoys, Fine fancied foretaste of eternal joys, Fastidious pomp or proud imperial state,-- Illusions all, that pass the Ivory Gate! Various and vast the fraudful drama grows, Feign'd are the pleasures, as unfelt the woes; Where sainted hierophants, with well taught mimes, Play'd first the role for all succeeding times; Which, vamp'd and varied as the clime required, More trist or splendid, open or retired, Forms local creeds, with multifarious lore, Creates the God and bids the world adore. Lo at the Lama's feet, as lord of all, Age following age in dumb devotion fall; The youthful god, mid suppliant kings enshrined, Dispensing fate and ruling half mankind, Sits with contorted limbs, a silent slave, An early victim of a secret grave; His priests by myriads famish every clime And sell salvation in the tones they chime. See India's Triad frame their blood-penn'd codes, Old Ganges change his gardens for his gods, Ask his own waves from their celestial hands, And choke his channel with their sainted sands. Mad with the mandates of their scriptured word, And prompt to snatch from hell her dear dead lord, The wife, still blooming, decks her sacred urns, Mounts the gay pyre, and with his body burns.