th’ unhappy town:  }
    The old deplore their late remains of light;
    And mothers lead their infants from the sight. 
    The ghosts of Cadmus’ race, an impious crew,
    This prodigy of kindred guilt to view,
    Sent from the mansion of eternal hills,
    (A dark assembly) crowd Baeotia’s hills;
    O’er day’s fair face a gloomy twilight cast,
    And smile with joy to see their crimes surpass’d.

FROM THE NINTH BOOK OF KLOPSTOCK’S MESSIAH.

    Where, in the midst of vast Infinitude,
    The arm creative stopp’d,—­dread bound of space,
    Alien to God, and from his sight exil’d,
    Hell rolls her sulph’rous torrents.  There, nor law
    Of motion, nor eternal Order reigns;
    But anarchy instead, and wild uproar,
    And ruinous tumult.  Now with lightning speed
    Th’ accursed sphere, with all its flames, flies up
    Into the void abrupt, and with its roar,
    With groans commixt, and shrieks, and boundless yells,
    Astounds the nearest stars:  calm now and slow,
    With dreadful peace the universal waves
    Of sulphur roll, and pour a mightier flood
    On those tormented, their eternal crimes
    Avenging with fresh pain and sharper darts
    Of never-dying torture.—­They meanwhile,
    The caitiff and his puissant guide, on wing
    Impetuous, skirt creation’s flaming waste,
    And suns innumerable, and with prone flight
    Descending down, light sheer upon the coast
    Of outmost Night.  The guard seraphic knows. 
    That power ministrant, ——­
    ——­ and with quick despatch
    Unfolds the Stygian doors, that jarring hoarse
    Slow on their adamantine hinges turn’d,
    And open’d to their ken the dread abyss,
    Unfathomably deep, mother of woes. 
    Not mountains pil’d on mountains would close up
    Th’ infernal entrance:  they would but increase
    Its native ruggedness.  No path leads down
    To those abhorred deeps.  Close by the gate
    Impendent rocks with fiery whirlwinds cleft
    For ever fell into the deep abyss,
    Continuous ruin. ——­
    ——­ On the hideous brink
    Of this great tomb, where Death nor sleeps, nor dies,
    In dreadful silence, with the wretch hell-doom’d,
    Stood the Death-angel. ——­

BEGINNING OF THE THIRTEENTH ILIAD,

TRANSLATED IN IMITATION OF WALTER SCOTT.

     [Greek:  Zeus d’ epei oun Troas te kai Hektora neusi pelasse], &c.

    1.

    From Ida’s peak high Jove beheld
    The tumults of the battle-field,
        The fortune of the fight—­
    He marked, where by the ocean-flood
    Stout Hector with his Trojans stood,
    And mingled in the strife of blood
        Achaia’s stalwart might: 
    He saw—­and turn’d his sunbright eyes
    Where Thracia’s snow-capped