Neptune’s huge hand has closed with brazen gates
The mouth: a wall environs every side.
There Gyges, Cottus, high-souled Briareus,
Dwell vigilant: the faithful sentinels
Of Ægis-bearer Jove. Successive there
The dusky Earth, and darksome Tartarus,
The sterile Ocean, and the starry Heaven,
[215]Arise and end, their source and boundary.
[216]A drear and ghastly wilderness, abhorr’d
E’en by the gods; a vast vacuity: