An honest hour, and faithful to her trust;

Truth, eldest daughter of the Deity;

Truth, of his council, when he made the worlds;

Nor less, when he shall judge the worlds he made;

Though silent long, and sleeping ne’er so sound, 830

Smother’d with errors, and oppress’d with toys,

That heaven-commission’d hour no sooner calls,

But from her cavern in the soul’s abyss,

Like him they fable under Ætna whelm’d, 834

The goddess bursts in thunder, and in flame;