“He said: chill horrors shook my shivering soul, Rack’d with convulsive pangs in dust I roll; And hate, in madness of extreme despair, To view the sun, or breathe the vital air. But when, superior to the rage of woe, I stood restored and tears had ceased to flow, Lenient of grief the pitying god began: ‘Forget the brother, and resume the man. To Fate’s supreme dispose the dead resign, That care be Fate’s, a speedy passage thine Still lives the wretch who wrought the death deplored, But lives a victim for thy vengeful sword; Unless with filial rage Orestes glow, And swift prevent the meditated blow: You timely will return a welcome guest, With him to share the sad funereal feast.’ “He said: new thoughts my beating heart employ, My gloomy soul receives a gleam of joy. Fair hope revives; and eager I address’d The prescient godhead to reveal the rest: ‘The doom decreed of those disastrous two I’ve heard with pain, but oh! the tale pursue; What third brave son of Mars the Fates constrain To roam the howling desert of the main; Or, in eternal shade of cold he lies, Provoke new sorrows from these grateful eyes.’ “‘That chief (rejoin’d the god) his race derives From Ithaca, and wondrous woes survives; Laertes’ son: girt with circumfluous tides, He still calamitous constraint abides. Him in Calypso’s cave of late I view’d, When streaming grief his faded cheek bedow’d. But vain his prayer, his arts are vain, to move The enamour’d goddess, or elude her love: His vessel sunk, and dear companions lost, He lives reluctant on a foreign coast. But oh, beloved by Heaven! reserved to thee A happier lot the smiling Fates decree: Free from that law, beneath whose mortal sway Matter is changed, and varying forms decay, Elysium shall be thine: the blissful plains Of utmost earth, where Rhadamanthus reigns. Joys ever young, unmix’d with pain or fear, Fill the wide circle of the eternal year: Stern winter smiles on that auspicious clime: The fields are florid with unfading prime; From the bleak pole no winds inclement blow, Mould the round hail, or flake the fleecy snow; But from the breezy deep the blest inhale The fragrant murmurs of the western gale. This grace peculiar will the gods afford To thee, the son of Jove, and beauteous Helen’s lord.’