Elysian

In such delicious fancies time quickly glides by, and the welcome hour arrives for her entrance into the Elysian world, of which she has had such bright dreams.

A smile was on his countenance; he seem’d To common lookers-on, like one who dream’d Of idleness in groves Elysian: But there were some who feelingly could scan A lurking trouble in his nether lip, And see that oftentimes the reins would slip Through his forgotten hands: then would they sigh, And think of yellow leaves, of owlets’ cry, Of logs piled solemnly.—Ah, well-a-day, Why should our young Endymion pine away!

Full canisters of fragrant lilies bring, Mix’d with the purple roses of the spring; Let me with fun’ral flow’rs his body strow; This gift which parents to their children owe, This unavailing gift, at least, I may bestow!” Thus having said, he led the hero round The confines of the blest Elysian ground; Which when Anchises to his son had shown, And fir’d his mind to mount the promis’d throne, He tells the future wars, ordain’d by fate; The strength and customs of the Latian state; The prince, and people; and forearms his care With rules, to push his fortune, or to bear.

The summer, in some climates, makes possible to man a sort of Elysian life.

Lowly reverent Towards either throne they bow, and to the ground With solemn adoration down they cast Their crowns inwove with amarant and gold: Immortal amarant, a flower which once In Paradise, fast by the Tree of Life, Began to bloom, but soon for Man’s offence To Heaven removed, where first it grew, there grows And flowers aloft, shading the Fount of Life, And where the River of Bliss through midst of Heaven Rolls o’er Elysian flowers her amber stream.

For, come, tell me, can there be anything more delightful than to see, as it were, here now displayed before us a vast lake of bubbling pitch with a host of snakes and serpents and lizards, and ferocious and terrible creatures of all sorts swimming about in it, while from the middle of the lake there comes a plaintive voice saying: ‘Knight, whosoever thou art who beholdest this dread lake, if thou wouldst win the prize that lies hidden beneath these dusky waves, prove the valour of thy stout heart and cast thyself into the midst of its dark burning waters, else thou shalt not be worthy to see the mighty wonders contained in the seven castles of the seven Fays that lie beneath this black expanse;’ and then the knight, almost ere the awful voice has ceased, without stopping to consider, without pausing to reflect upon the danger to which he is exposing himself, without even relieving himself of the weight of his massive armour, commending himself to God and to his lady, plunges into the midst of the boiling lake, and when he little looks for it, or knows what his fate is to be, he finds himself among flowery meadows, with which the Elysian fields are not to be compared.