Nor can I stand against this agony. 
    Still, if some fragrance lingers yet and cleaves
    Of your famed love unto your memory,
    If of that ancient rape you think at all,
    Give back Eurydice!—­On you I call. 
  All things ere long unto this bourne descend: 
    All mortal lives to you return at last: 
    Whate’er the moon hath circled, in the end
    Must fade and perish in your empire vast: 
    Some sooner and some later hither wend;
    Yet all upon this pathway shall have passed: 
    This of our footsteps is the final goal;
    And then we dwell for aye in your control. 
  Therefore the nymph I love is left for you
    When nature leads her deathward in due time: 
    But now you’ve cropped the tendrils as they grew,
    The grapes unripe, while yet the sap did climb: 
    Who reaps the young blades wet with April dew,
    Nor waits till summer hath o’erpassed her prime? 
    Give back, give back my hope one little day!—­
    Not for a gift, but for a loan I pray. 
  I pray not to you by the waves forlorn
    Of marshy Styx or dismal Acheron,
    By Chaos where the mighty world was born,
    Or by the sounding flames of Phlegethon;
    But by the fruit which charmed thee on that morn
    When thou didst leave our world for this dread throne! 
    O queen! if thou reject this pleading breath,
    I will no more return, but ask for death!

  PROSERPINE.

  Husband, I never guessed
    That in our realm oppressed
    Pity could find a home to dwell: 
    But now I know that mercy teems in Hell. 
    I see Death weep; her breast
    Is shaken by those tears that faultless fell. 
    Let then thy laws severe for him be swayed
    By love, by song, by the just prayers he prayed!

  PLUTO.

  She’s thine, but at this price: 
    Bend not on her thine eyes,
    Till mid the souls that live she stay. 
    See that thou turn not back upon the way! 
    Check all fond thoughts that rise! 
    Else will thy love be torn from thee away. 
    I am well pleased that song so rare as thine
    The might of my dread sceptre should incline.

  SCENE V

  ORPHEUS, sings.

  Ite tritumphales circum mea tempora lauri. 
    Vicimus Eurydicen:  reddita vita mihi est,
  Haec mea praecipue victoria digna corona. 
    Oredimus? an lateri juncta puella meo?

  EURYDICE.

  All me!  Thy love too great
    Hath lost not thee alone! 
    I am torn from thee by strong Fate. 
    No more I am thine own. 
    In vain I stretch these arms.  Back, back to Hell
    I’m drawn, I’m drawn.  My Orpheus, fare thee well!

  [EURYDICE disappears.

  ORPHEUS.

  Who hath laid laws on Love? 
    Will pity not be given
    For one short look so full thereof? 
    Since I am robbed of heaven,
    Since all my joy so great is turned to pain,
    I will go back and plead with Death again!