"Still there they stood, and forced me to behold
A place of horrors--they can not be told -
Where the flood open'd, there I heard the shriek
Of tortured guilt--no earthly tongue can speak:
'All days alike! for ever!' did they say,
'And unremitted torments every day' -
Yes, so they said"--But here he ceased and gazed
On all around, affrighten'd and amazed;
And still he tried to speak, and look'd in dread
Of frighten'd females gathering round his bed;
Then dropp'd exhausted, and appear'd at rest,
Till the strong foe the vital powers possess'd;
Then with an inward, broken voice he cried,
"Again they come!" and mutter'd as he died. {13}
LETTER XXIII.
Poena autem vehemens ac multo saevior illis,
Quas et Caeditius gravis invenit aut Rhadamanthus,
Nocte dieque suum gestare in pectore testem.
JUVENAL, Satire xiii.
. . . . Think my former state a happy dream,
From which awaked, the truth of what we are
Shows us but this,--I am sworn brother now
To grim Necessity, and he and I
Will keep a league till death.
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