Down a steep yawning cave where yews display’d In arches meet, and lend a baleful shade, Through silent labyrinths a passage lies To mournful regions and infernal skies. Here Styx exhales its noisome clouds, and here, The funeral rites once paid, all souls appear, Stiff, cold; and horror, with a ghastly face, And staring eyes, infests the dreary place. Ghosts, new-arrived, and strangers to these plains, Know not the palace where grim Pluto reigns; They journey doubtful, nor the road can tell, Which leads to the metropolis of hell. A thousand avenues those towers command, A thousand gates for ever open stand. As all the rivers, disembogued, find room For all their waters in old Ocean’s womb, So this vast city worlds of shades receives, And space for millions still of worlds she leaves. The unbodied spectres freely rove, and show Whate’er they loved on earth they love below: The lawyers still, or right or wrong support, The courtiers smoothly glide to Pluto’s court, Still airy heroes thoughts of glory fire, Still the dead poet strings his deathless lyre, And lovers still with fancied darts expire.