CAN TO i. PRODUCTION OF LIFE. 11 



O'er all Despair expands his raven wings, 



And guilt-stain'd Conscience darts a thousand stings. 



Deep-whelm'd beneath, in vast sepulchral caves, 

 OBLIVION dwells amid unlabell'd graves; 

 The storied tomb, the laurell'd bust o'erturns, 

 And shakes their ashes from the mould'ring urns. 

 No vernal zephyr breathes, no sunbeams cheer, 

 Nor song, nor simper, ever enters here; 

 O'er the green floor, and round the dew-damp wall, 

 The slimy snail, and bloated lizard crawl; 120 



While on white heaps of intermingled bones 

 The muse of MELANCHOLY sits and moans; 

 Showers her cold tears o'er Beauty's early wreck, 

 Spreads her pale arms, and bends her marble neck. 



So in rude rocks, beside the JEgean wave, 

 TROPHONIUS scoop'd his sorrow- sacred cave; 



Trophonius scoop' d, 1. 126*. Plutarch mentions, that prophecies of 

 evil events were uttered from the cave of Trophonius ; hut the allegori- 

 cal story, that whoever -entered this cavern were never again seen to 



