he river's margin? Then the Sire
Anchises answered: "They are souls, that wait
For other bodies, promised them by Fate.
Now, by the banks of Lethe here below,
They lose the memory of their former state,
And from the silent waters, as they flow,
Drink the oblivious draught, and all their cares forego.

XCV. "Long have I wished to show thee, face to face,
Italia's sons, that thou might'st joy with me
To hail the new-found country of our race."
"Oh father!" said AEneas, "can it be,
That souls sublime, so happy and so free,
Can yearn for fleshly tenements again?
So madly long they for the light?" Then he:
"Learn, son, and listen, nor in doubt remain."
And thus in ordered speech the mystery made plain:

XCVI. "First, Heaven and Earth and Ocean's liquid plains,
The Moon's bright globe and planets of the pole,
One mind, infused through every part, sustains;
One universal, animating soul
Quickens, unites and mingles with the whole.
Hence man proceeds, and beasts, and birds of air,
And monsters that in marble ocean roll;
And fiery energy divine they share,
Save what corruption clogs, and earthly limbs impair.

XCVII. "Hence Fear and Sorrow, hence Desire and Mirth;
Nor can the soul, in darkness and in chains,
Assert the skies, and claim celestial birth.
Nay, after death, the traces it retains
Of fleshly grossness, and corporeal stains,
Since much must needs by long concretion grow
Inherent. Therefore are they racked with pains,
And schooled in all the discipline of woe;
Each pays for ancient sin with punishment below.

XCVIII. "Some hang before the viewless winds to bleach;
Some purge in fire or flood the deep decay
And taint of wickedness. We suffer each
Our ghostly penance; thence, the few who may,
Seek the bright meadows of Elysian day,
Till long, long years, when our allotted time
Hath run its orbit, wear the stains away,
And leave the aetherial sense, and spark sublime,
Cleansed from the dross of earth, and cankering rust of crime.

XCIX. "These, when a thousand rolling years are o'er,
Called by the God, to Lethe's waves repair;
There, reft of memory, to yearn once more
For mortal bodies and the upper air."
So spake Anchises, and the priestess fair
Leads, with his son, the murmuring shades among,
Where thickest crowd the multitude, and there
They mou