Orpheus

And bring her back! come back, Eurydice! - Come back, pale wanderer to Eternity! Come back, my wife, my wife, again to love! Come back, my wife! come back, come back to me! Enough! my purpose holds: no feeble cries! No sob shall shake these nerves : no ecstasies Of hope, or fear, or love avail to move Those iron-hearted dooms and destinies. I will be calm and firm as I were Zeus. I will descend to Hades and unloose My wife: prevail on pale Persephone, Laving her love-locks with exalted dews Of stern grey song; such roseate tunes espouse That all the echoes of that lonely house Answer me sob for sob, that she decree With love deep-seated in her lofty brows Forth sparkling: and with Hades intercede. So as I stir the judgment-seat, and plead, The awful brows may lighten, and decree My wife’s return—a poet’s lofty meed! EXPLICIT LIBER SECUNDUS END OF VOLUME I 155