Medea's charms were there, Circean feasts, With bowls that turned enamoured youths to beasts. Here might be seen, that beauty, wealth, and wit, And prowess, to the power of love submit; The spreading snare for all mankind is laid, And lovers all betray, and are betrayed. The goddess' self some noble hand had wrought; Smiling she seemed, and full of pleasing thought; From ocean, as she first began to rise, And smoothed the ruffled seas, and cleared the skies, She trod the brine, all bare below the breast, And the green waves but ill concealed the rest: A lute she held; and on her head was seen A wreath of roses red, and myrtles green; Her turtles fanned the buxom air above; And, by his mother, stood an infant Love, With wings unfledged; his eyes were banded o'er, } His hands a bow, his back a quiver bore, } Supplied with arrows bright and keen, a deadly store. } But in the dome of mighty Mars the red, With different figures all the sides were spread; This temple, less in form, with equal grace, Was imitative of the first in Thrace; For that cold region was the loved abode, And sovereign mansion of the warrior god. The landscape was a forest wide and bare, Where neither beast nor human kind repair; The fowl, that scent afar, the borders fly, And shun the bitter blast, and wheel about the sky. A cake of scurf lies baking on the ground, And prickly stubs, instead of trees, are found; Or woods with knots and knares deformed and old; Headless the most, and hideous to behold; A rattling tempest through the branches went, That stripped them bare, and one sole way they bent. Heaven froze above, severe; the clouds congeal, And through the crystal vault appeared the standing hail. Such was the face without; a mountain stood Threat'ning from high, and overlooked the wood; Beneath the lowring brow, and on a bent,[155] The temple stood of Mars armipotent; The frame of burnished steel, that cast a glare From far, and seemed to thaw the freezing air. A strait long entry to the temple led, Blind with high walls, and horror over head; Thence issued such a blast, and hollow roar, As threatened from the hinge to heave the door; In through that door a northern light there shone; 'Twas all it had, for windows there were none. The gate was adamant; eternal frame! Which, hewed by Mars himself, from Indian quarries came, The labour of a God; and all along Tough iron plates were clenched to make it strong. A tun about was every pillar there; A polished mirror shone not half so clear. There saw I how the secret felon wrought, } And treason labouring in the traitor's thought, } And midwife Time the ripened plot to murders brought. } There the red Anger dared the pallid Fear; Next stood Hypocrisy, with holy leer; Soft smiling, and demurely looking down, But hid the dagger underneath the gown;