And if I have also employed reasonings not drawn from without, but lying within the compass of our subject, there is no cause for thee to marvel, since thou hast learnt on Plato's authority that words ought to be akin to the matter of which they treat.' SONG XII.
ORPHEUS AND EURYDICE.
Blest he whose feet have stood Beside the fount of good; Blest he whose will could break Earth's chains for wisdom's sake! The Thracian bard, 'tis said, Mourned his dear consort dead; To hear the plaintive strain The woods moved in his train, And the stream ceased to flow, Held by so soft a woe; The deer without dismay Beside the lion lay; The hound, by song subdued, No more the hare pursued, But the pang unassuaged In his own bosom raged.
The music that could calm All else brought him no balm.
Chiding the powers immortal, He came unto Hell's portal; There breathed all tender things Upon his sounding strings, Each rhapsody high-wrought His goddess-mother taught-- All he from grief could borrow And love redoubling sorrow, Till, as the echoes waken, All Taenarus is shaken; Whilst he to ruth persuades The monarch of the shades With dulcet prayer.

Spell-bound, The triple-headed hound At sounds so strangely sweet Falls crouching at his feet.
The dread Avengers, too, That guilty minds pursue With ever-haunting fears, Are all dissolved in tears.
Ixion, on his wheel, A respite brief doth feel; For, lo! the wheel stands still.
And, while those sad notes thrill, Thirst-maddened Tantalus Listens, oblivious Of the stream's mockery And his long agony.
The vulture, too, doth spare Some little while to tear At Tityus' rent side, Sated and pacified.
At length the shadowy king, His sorrows pitying, 'He hath prevailed!' cried; 'We give him back his bride! To him she shall belong, As guerdon of his song.
One sole condition yet Upon the boon is set: Let him not turn his eyes To view his hard-won prize, Till they securely pass The gates of Hell.' Alas! What law can lovers move?
A higher law is love! For Orpheus--woe is me!-- On his Eurydice-- Day's threshold all but won-- Looked, lost, and was undone! Ye who the light pursue, This story is for you, Who seek to find a way Unto the clearer day.
If on the darkness past One backward look ye cast, Your weak and wandering eyes Have lost the matchless prize..