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Home  »  The Book of Restoration Verse  »  John Dryden (1631–1700)

William Stanley Braithwaite, ed. The Book of Restoration Verse. 1910.

Song: ‘Hear, ye sullen powers below!’

John Dryden (1631–1700)

HEAR, ye sullen powers below!

Hear, ye taskers of the dead!

You that boiling cauldrons blow!

You that scum the molten lead!

You that pinch with red-hot tongs!

You that drive the trembling hosts

Of poor ghosts

With your sharpened prongs!

You that thrust them off the brim!

You that plunge them when they swim

Till they drown;

Till they go

On a row

Down, down, down,

Ten thousand, thousand, thousand fathoms low—
Chorus.Till they drown, etc.

Music for a while

Shall your cares beguile:

Wondering how your pains were eased!

And disdaining to be pleased!

Till Alecto free the dead

From their eternal bands;

Till the snakes drop from her head,

And whip from out her hands.

Come away,

Do not stay,

But obey,

While we play,

For hell’s broke up, and ghosts have holiday.

Chor.Come away, etc.

Laius! Laius! Laius!

Hear! Hear! Hear!

Tiresias.Hear and appear!

By the Fates that spun thy thread!

Chor.Which are three—

Tir.By the judges of the dead!

Chor.Which are three—

Three times three—

Tir.By hell’s blue flame!

By the Stygian lake!

And by Demogorgon’s name

At which ghost’s quake!

Hear and appear!