Another part in Squadrons and gross Bands, [ 570 ]

On bold adventure to discover wide

That dismal world, if any Clime perhaps

Might yield them easier habitation, bend

Four ways thir flying March, along the Banks

Of four infernal Rivers that disgorge [ 575 ]

Into the burning Lake thir baleful streams;

Abhorred Styx the flood of deadly hate,

Sad Acheron of sorrow, black and deep;

Cocytus, namd of lamentation loud

Heard on the ruful stream; fierce Phlegeton [ 580 ]

Whose waves of torrent fire inflame with rage.

Farr off from these a slow and silent stream,

Lethe the River of Oblivion roules

Her watrie Labyrinth, whereof who drinks,

Forthwith his former state and being forgets, [ 585 ]

Forgets both joy and grief, pleasure and pain.

Beyond this flood a frozen Continent

Lies dark and wilde, beat with perpetual storms

Of Whirlwind and dire Hail, which on firm land

Thaws not, but gathers heap, and ruin seems [ 590 ]

Of ancient pile; all else deep snow and ice,

A gulf profound as that Serbonian Bog

Betwixt Damiata and Mount Casius old,

Where Armies whole have sunk: the parching Air

Burns frore, and cold performs th effect of Fire. [ 595 ]

Thither by harpy-footed Furies haild,

At certain revolutions all the damnd

Are brought: and feel by turns the bitter change

Of fierce extreams, extreams by change more fierce,

From Beds of raging Fire to starve in Ice [ 600 ]

Thir soft Ethereal warmth, and there to pine

Immovable, infixt, and frozen round,

Periods of time, thence hurried back to fire.

They ferry over this Lethean Sound

Both to and fro, thir sorrow to augment, [ 605 ]

And wish and struggle, as they pass, to reach

The tempting stream, with one small drop to loose

In sweet forgetfulness all pain and woe,

All in one moment, and so neer the brink;

But fate withstands, and to oppose th attempt [ 610 ]

Medusa with Gorgonian terror guards

The Ford, and of it self the water flies

All taste of living wight, as once it fled

The lip of Tantalus. Thus roving on

In confusd march forlorn, th adventrous Bands [ 615 ]

With shuddring horror pale, and eyes agast

Viewd first thir lamentable lot, and found

No rest: through many a dark and drearie Vaile

They passd, and many a Region dolorous,

Oer many a Frozen, many a fierie Alpe, [ 620 ]

Rocks, Caves, Lakes, Fens, Bogs, Dens, and shades of death,

A Universe of death, which God by curse

Created evil, for evil only good,

Where all life dies, death lives, and Nature breeds,

Perverse, all monstrous, all prodigious things, [ 625 ]

Abominable, inutterable, and worse

Then Fables yet have feignd, or fear conceivd,

Gorgons and Hydras, and Chimeras dire.