When in these wasting forms affliction stood
In my afiiicted view, it chill’d my blood; —
And forth I rush’d, a quick retreat to make,
Till a loud laugh proclaim’d the dire mistake: 
But when the groan had settled to a sigh,
When gloom became familiar to the eye,
When I perceive how others seem to rest,
With every evil rankling in my breast, —
Led by example, I put on the man,
Sing off my sighs, and trifle as I can. 
   “Homer! nay Pope! (for never will I seek
Applause for learning—­nought have I with Greek)
Gives us the secrets of his pagan hell,
Where ghost with ghost in sad communion dwell;
Where shade meets shade, and round the gloomy meads
They glide, and speak of old heroic deeds, —
What fields they conquer’d, and what foes they slew,
And sent to join the melancholy crew. 
When a new spirit in that world was found,
A thousand shadowy forms came flitting round: 
Those who had known him, fond inquiries made, —
’Of all we left, inform us, gentle shade,
Now as we lead thee in our realms to dwell,
Our twilight groves, and meads of asphodel.’ 
   “What paints the poet, is our station here,
Where we like ghosts and flitting shades appear: 
This is the hell he sings, and here we meet,
And former deeds to new-made friends repeat;
Heroic deeds, which here obtain us fame,
And are in fact the causes why we came: 
Yes! this dim region is old Homer’s hell,
Abate but groves and meads of asphodel. 
Here, when a stranger from your world we spy,
We gather round him and for news apply;
He hears unheeding, nor can speech endure,
But shivering gazes on the vast obscure: 
We smiling pity, and by kindness show
We felt his feelings and his terrors know;
Then speak of comfort—­time will give him sight,
Where now ’tis dark; where now ’tis woe—­delight. 
‘Have hope,’ we say, ’and soon the place to thee
Shall not a prison but a castle be: 
When to the wretch whom care and guilt confound,
The world’s a prison, with a wider bound;
Go where he may, he feels himself confined,
And wears the fetters of an abject mind.’ 
   “But now adieu! those giant-keys appear,
Thou art not worthy to be inmate here: 
Go to thy world, and to the young declare
What we, our spirits and employments, are;
Tell them how we the ills of life endure,
Our empire stable, and our state secure;
Our dress, our diet, for their use describe,
And bid them haste to join the gen’rous tribe: 
Go to thy world, and leave us here to dwell,
Who to its joys and comforts bid farewell.” 
   Farewell to these; but other scenes I view,
And other griefs, and guilt of deeper hue;
Where Conscience gives to outward ills her pain,
Gloom to the night, and pressure to the chain: 
Here separate cells awhile in misery keep
Two doom’d to suffer:  there they strive for sleep;
By day indulged, in larger space they range,