The Prayer of Orpheus

Sad monarch of the world below,
Stern guardian of this drowsy shade,
Through these unlovely realms I go
To seek a captive thou hast made.
O'er Stygian waters have I pass'd,
Contemning Jove's severe decree,
And reached thy sable court at last
To find my lost Eurydicè.

Of all the nymphs so deckt and drest
Like Venus of the starry train,
She was the loveliest and the best,
The pride and glory of the plain.
O free from thy despotic sway
This nymph of heaven-descended charms,
Too soon she came this dusky way--
Restore thy captive to my arms!

As by a stream's fair verdant side
In myrtle shades she roved along,
A serpent stung my blooming bride,
This brightest of the female throng--
The venom hastening thro' her veins
Forbade the freezing blood to flow.
And thus she left the Thracian plains
For these dejected groves below.

Even thou may'st pity my sad pain,
Since Love, as ancient stories say,
Forced thee to leave thy native reign,
And in Sicilian meadows stray:
Bright Proserpine thy bosom fired,
For her you sought unwelcome light,
Madness and love in you conspired
To seize her to the shades of night.

But if, averse to my request,
The banished nymph, for whom I mourn,
Must in Plutonian chambers rest,
And never to my arms return----
Take Orpheus too--his warm desire
Can ne'er be quench'd by your decree:
In life or death he must admire,
He must adore Eurydicè!