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All shall be thine: thy power confess,
Nor seek by prayers to feign it less.'
He said, and to his bosom pressed
His beauteous queen, and sank to rest.

The night had crowned the cope of heaven,
And sleep's first fading bloom had driven
The slumber from men's eyes;
E'en at the hour when prudent wife,
Who day by day, to eke out life,
Minerva's distaff plies,
Relumes her fire, o'erreaching night,
And tasks her maidens by its light,
To keep her husband's bed from stain
And for their babes a pittance gain;
So, nor less swift, at labour's claim
Springs from his couch the Lord of flame.
Fast by Æolian Lipare
And fair Sicania's coast
An island rises from the sea
With smoking rocks embossed;
Beneath, a cavern drear and vast,
Hollowed by Cyclopean blast,
Rings with unearthly sound;
Bruised anvils clang their thunder-peal,
Hot hissing glows the Chalyb steel,
And fiery vapour fierce and fast
Pants up from underground;
The centre this of Vulcan's toil,
And Vulcan's name adorns the soil.
Here finds he, as he makes descent,
The Cyclops o'er their labour bent:
Brontes and Steropes are there,
And gaunt Pyracmon, stripped and bare.
The thunderbolt was in their hand,
Which Jove sends down to scourge the land;