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Support the Monkey! Tell All your Friends and Teachers |
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Support the Monkey! Tell All your Friends and Teachers |
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Are those to whom, by fate, are other bodies ow'd: In Lethe's lake they long oblivion taste, Of future life secure, forgetful of the past. Long has my soul desir'd this time and place, To set before your sight your glorious race, That this presaging joy may fire your mind To seek the shores by destiny design'd."- "O father, can it be, that souls sublime Return to visit our terrestrial clime, And that the gen'rous mind, releas'd by death, Can covet lazy limbs and mortal breath?" Anchises then, in order, thus begun To clear those wonders to his godlike son: "Know, first, that heav'n, and earth's compacted frame, And flowing waters, and the starry flame, And both the radiant lights, one common soul Inspires and feeds, and animates the whole. This active mind, infus'd thro' all the space, Unites and mingles with the mighty mass. Hence men and beasts the breath of life obtain, And birds of air, and monsters of the main. Th' ethereal vigor is in all the same, And every soul is fill'd with equal flame; As much as earthy limbs, and gross allay Of mortal members, subject to decay, Blunt not the beams of heav'n and edge of day. From this coarse mixture of terrestrial parts, Desire and fear by turns possess their hearts, And grief, and joy; nor can the groveling mind, In the dark dungeon of the limbs confin'd, Assert the native skies, or own its heav'nly kind: Nor death itself can wholly wash their stains; But long-contracted filth ev'n in the soul remains. The relics of inveterate vice they wear, And spots of sin obscene in ev'ry face appear. For this are various penances enjoin'd; And some are hung to bleach upon the wind, Some plung'd in waters, others purg'd in fires, Till all the dregs are drain'd, and all the rust expires. All have their manes, and those manes bear: The few, so cleans'd, to these abodes repair, And breathe, in ample fields, the soft Elysian air. Then are they happy, when by length of time The scurf is worn away of each committed crime; |
