"O to be a bachelor!"
Pluto now forever sighs.
"In my marriage miseries,
I perceive, without a wife
Hell was not a hell before.
"O to be a bachelor!
Since my Proserpine is mine,
Daily for my grave I pine,
When she raileth I can hear
Barking Cerberus no more.
"My poor heart needs rest and ease,
In the realm of shades I cry,—
No lost soul is sad as I.
Sisyphus I envy now,
And the fair Danaïdes."
II.
In the realm of shades, on a throne of gold,
By the side of her royal spouse, behold
Fair Proserpine,
With gloomy mien,
While deep sighs upheave her bosom.
"The roses, the passionate song I miss
Of the nightingale; yea, and the sun's warm kiss.
Midst the Lemur's dread,
And the ghostly dead,
Now withers my life's young blossom.
"I am fast in the yoke of marriage bound
To this cursèd rat-hole underground.
Through my window at night,
Peers each ghostly sprite,
And the Styx murmurs lower and lower.
"To-day I have Charon invited to dinner,
He is bald, and his limbs they grow thinner and thinner,
And the judges, beside,
Of the dead, dismal-eyed,
In such company I shall grow sour."