But, in the inmost gloom, a giant fiend

Musters the furies that his voice attend.

Pale Melancholy's faded form is there,

Grief, Terror, Rage, and Phrenzy's ghastly stare. From the broad circles of his baleful eyes

Destruction flashes: who beholds him, dies.

This was that monstrous image which of yore,
Jove's awful daughter on her Ægis bore;
Which wither'd nations with portentous glare,
Gorgon the pest was call'd, but now Despair.

This doleful prison the revengeful mind
Of Archimage to Paladour assign'd;
Invok'd, with horrid rites, the pow'rs of hell,

And trac'd, with subtle art, the mystic spell.
But how young Cadwall, with Melissa's aid,
His dark designs with vengeance just repaid;
And Paladour beheld, with joyful eyes,

The smiling earth, the lustre of the skies;

Once more allow'd the best delights to prove,

Adorn'd with glory, blest with gentle love;

After great perils past, and labours long,

Must be the subject of a future song. '

END OF THE SECOND CANTO.

THE

BOWER OF MELISSA.

A TAL E.

CANTO III.

THE BOWER OF MELISSA.

A TALE.

CANTO III.

SOON

as Melissa heard the shriek of woe,

And saw the lucid stream polluted flow;
While ev'ry flow'r reclin'd its languid head,

The trees around their leafy honours shed,

As touch'd by sudden frost, a sullen sound

Sang through the vale, and shook the groaning ground:

Alarm'd, the fairy the dread signs perceiv'd,

And knew the crime by Archimage achiev'd.

She burns with wrath, and swift through air she flies,

Like some bright meteor in autumnal skies.