"'Gainst fear and pity now thy bosom steel, / For sights more horrible I now reveal!"

So speaking, the kind Spirit's anxious care
Led from the palace the attentive fair,
And, winding through a passage dark and rude,
Thus the mild monitor her speech renew'd:
"'Gainst fear and pity now thy bosom steel,
For sights more horrible I now reveal!
Spleen's tortur'd victims view with dauntless eyes;
For lo! her penal realms before thee rise!"
The nymph advancing saw, with mute amaze,
A dismal, deep, enormous dungeon blaze.
Stones of red fire the hideous wall compos'd;
And massive gates the horrid confine clos'd,
Th' infernal portress of this doleful dome,
With fiery lips, that swell'd with poisonous foam,
Pale Discord, rag'd; with whose tormenting tongue,
Thro' all its caves th' extensive region rung:
A living vulture was the fury's crest;
And in her hand a rattlesnake she prest,
Whose angry joints incessantly were heard
To sound defiance to the screaming bird.

Searching "bosom" and "steel" in HDIS (Poetry)

2005-06-13