[At every fall] smoothing the raven down
Of darkness till it smiled! I have oft heard
My mother Circe with [the Sirens] three,
Amidst the flowery-kirtled [Naiades],
Culling their potent herbs and baleful drugs, 255
Who, as they sung, would take the prisoned soul,
[And lap it in Elysium]: [Scylla] wept,
And chid her barking waves into attention,
And fell [Charybdis] murmured soft applause.
[Yet they] in pleasing slumber lulled the sense, 260