“Easy,” replied the Sibyl, “the descent To Avernus; welcome all thither bent; Dis shuts none out; the task is, when the taste For sunshine revives, measure back the waste Wooded wilderness that Cocytus holds In its innumerable black-slime folds. What hope for mortals flesh-clogged to retrace Their way! A few by Jupiter’s good grace, Or saints on earth, with blood Divine to aid, Of brief sojourn there stepping-stones have made To the skies.— But enough! Well that the sight Of thy Sire is a passionate delight; That thy fond heart’s self-satisfying sense Of duty done is a full recompense For risking the mad liberty to float Twice across noisome Styx in Charon’s boat; And twice view Tartarus,— Yet first receive The terms on which alone Thou hast thy leave; In a nest of dells retired is a grove, Darkened by shadows of the hills above; And a tree, sun-proof, whose dense branches hold Ever among them one of purest gold; Gold leafage, gold saplings supple, yet tough; Vain for any, though brave, and fond enough, To plunge in the Underworld; unless he Have tracked and plucked the Gold Bough off the Tree. The Queen of Hades, Proserpine the Fair, Chooses offerings thence for her to wear, Never loses the tree glory; instead Of branch plucked a second straightway is bred, Thou, high and low, explore; and, if Thou find, Lay hold on it; should Fate have Thee designed, It will yield with ease, even joy; if not, Nor strength, nor steel could tear it from the spot. And ’tis not all; another duty still Rests on thee, and a sadder, to fulfil. While thou would’st learn the future in my cave, A friend has been lying dead, with no grave— To the entire Fleet a reproach, a shame. First give his relics tomb, and rites, they claim. So, may’st thou with clean hands thy way pursue; And realms forbid shall open to thy view.” A tangled maze! With a past bleak and bare, A future of dim hopes, and certain care;— A corse blurring the foreground! And of whom?