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Hence, Pythian games the hardy Greeks renown,
And laurel wreaths the joyful victor crown.
Here proud Alæus durft the gods defy,

And taught his impious brood to scale the sky:
While mountains pil'd on mountains interfere

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With heaven's bright orbs, and stop the circling sphere.
To this curft land, by Fate's appointed doom,

With one consent the warring leaders come;
Their camps are fix'd, and now the vulgar fear, 680
To fee the terrible event fo near.

A few, and but a few, with fouls ferene,
Wait the disclosing of the dubious scene.
But Sextus, mix'd among the vulgar herd,
Like them was anxious, and unmanly fear'd:
A youth unworthy of the hero's race,
And born to be his nobler fire's disgrace.

A day fhall come, when this inglorious fon
Shall ftain the trophies all by Pompey won:
A thief, and fpoiler, fhall he live confefs'd,
And act those wrongs his father's arm redrefs'd.
Vex'd with a coward's fond impatience now,
He pries into that fate he fears to know;
Nor feeks he, with religious vows, to move
The Delphic Tripod, or Dodonian Jove;
No prieftly Augur's arts employs his cares,
Nor Babylonian feers, who read the stars;
He nor by fibres, birds, or lightning's fires,
Nor any juft, though fecret, rites inquires;
But horrid altars, and infernal powers,
Dire mysteries of magic he explores,

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Such as high heaven and gracious Jove abhors.

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He

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He thinks, 'tis little thofe above can know,
And feeks accurft affistance from below.
The place itself the impious means fupplies,
While near Hæmonian hags incamp'd he lies:
All dreadful deeds, all monstrous forms of old,
By fear invented, and by falfehood told,
Whate'er tranfcends belief, and reafon's view,
Their art can furnish, and their power makes true. 710
The pregnant fields a horrid crop produce,
Noxious, and fit for witchcraft's deadly use :
With baleful weeds each mountain's brow is hung,
And liftening rocks attend the charmer's fong.
There, potent and mysterious plants arise,
Plants that compel the gods, and awe the skies;
There, leaves unfolded to Medea's view,

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Such as her native Colchos never knew.
Soon as the dread Hæmonian voice afcends,
Through the whole vaft expanfe, each power attends ;
Ev'n all thofe fullen deities, who know

No care of heaven above, or earth below,

Hear and obey. Th' Affyrian then, in vain,
And Memphian priefts, their local gods detain ;
From every altar loose at once they fly,

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And with the ftronger foreign call comply.

The coldeft hearts Theffalian numbers warm, And ruthless bofoms own the potent charm; With monstrous power they rouze perverse desire, And kindle into luft the wintery fire:

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Where noxious cups, and poisonous philtres fail,
More potent spells and myftic verse prevail.

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No draughts fo ftrong the knots of love prepare,
Cropt from her younglings by the parent mare.
Oft, fullen bridegrooms, who unkindly fled
From blooming beauty, and the genial bed,
Melt, as the thread runs on, and fighing, feel
The giddy whirling of the magic wheel.
Whene'er the proud inchantress gives command,
Eternal motion ftops her active hand;

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No more heaven's rapid circles journey on,
But univerfal nature ftands foredone:

The lazy god of day forgets to rife,

And everlasting night pollutes the skies.

Jove wonders, to behold her shake the pole,

And, unconfenting, hears his thunders roll.

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Now, with a word, the hides the fun's bright face,
And blots the wide ethereal azure space:
Loosely, anon, she shakes her flowing hair,

And straight the ftormy lowering heavens are fair: 50
At once, the calls the golden light again,

The clouds fly fwift away, and stops the drizly rain.
In ftilleft calms, fhe bids the waves run high,
And smooths the deep, though Boreas shakes the sky;
When winds are hufh'd, her potent breath prevails, 755
Wafts on the bark, and fills the flagging fails.
Streams have run back at murmurs of her tongue,
And torrents from the rock fufpended hung.
No more the Nile his wonted feafons knows,
And in a line the straight Mæander flows.
Arar has rush'd with headlong waters down,
And driven unwillingly the fluggish Rhone.

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Huge

Huge mountains have been level'd with the plain,
And far from heaven has tall Olympus lain.
Riphæan cryftal has been known to melt,
And Scythian fnows a fudden summer felt.
No longer preft by Cynthia's moister beam,
Alternate Tethys heaves her fwelling stream;
By charms forbid, her tides revolve no more,
But fhun the margin of the guarded fhore.
The ponderous earth, by magic numbers struck,
Down to her inmost centre deep has fhook;
Then rending with a yawn, at once made way,
To join the upper, and the nether day;

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While wondering eyes, the dreadful cleft between, 775 Another starry firmament have seen.

Each deadly kind, by nature form'd to kill,

Fear the dire hags, and execute their will.
Lions, to them, their nobler rage submit,
And fawning tigers couch beneath their feet;
For them, the snake foregoes her wintery hold,
And on the hoary froft untwines her fold:
The poisonous race they ftrike with stronger death,
And blafted vipers die by human breath.

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What law the heavenly natures thus conftrains, 785 And binds ev'n godheads in refiftless chains ? What wondrous power do charms and herbs imply, And force them thus to follow, and to fly? What is it can command them to obey? Does choice incline, or awful terror fway? Do fecret rites their deities atone,

Or myftic piety to man unknown?

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Do

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Do ftrong enchantments all immortals brave?
Or is there one determin'd god their flave?
One, whofe command obedient nature awes,
Who, fubje& ftill himself to magic laws,
Acts only as a fervile second cause ?
Magic the starry lamps from heaven can tear,
And fhoot them gleaming through the dusky air;
Can blot fair Cynthia's countenance serene,
And poifon with foul spells the filver queen:
Now pale the ghaftly goddess fhrinks with dread,
And now black smoky fires involve her head;
As when earth's envious interpofing shade,
Cuts off her beamy brother from her aid :
Held by the charming fong, fhe strives in vain,
And labours with the long purfuing pain;
Till down, and downward still, compell'd to come,
On hallow'd herbs the sheds her fatal foam.

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But thefe, as arts too gentle, and too good, Nor yet with death, or guilt enough embrued, With haughty fcorn the fierce Erictho view'd. New mischief fhe, new monfters durft explore, And dealt in horrors never known before. From towns and hospitable roofs the flies, And every dwelling of mankind defies; Through unfrequented deferts lonely roams, Drives out the dead, and dwells within their tombs. Spite of all laws, which heaven or nature know,

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The rule of gods above, and man below;

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Grateful to hell the living hag descends,
And fits in black affemblies of the fiends.

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