REDEMPTION. 59
In fiery seas ; all, who averted turn From God, and to idolatries devote Their powers ; sinners of every dye, pamper'd With lusts ; the fearful, faithless, covetous, Effeminate ; adult'rers, railers, proud, Drunkards, and thieves, and fornicators; all, Who fail'd their grov'ling passions to subdue, Now undeceived, bemoan their loss, and greet The ears of their irrisive foes, with notes Of sorrow, grief, despair, and luctual pangs. Unspeakable their anguish, groans and cries, That, sounding through the vaults of hell, intone Discordant music to th' infernal hosts.
Hard by the way they took, and deep embay' d Within a sea of liquid fire, uprose A promontory, glowing with asphalt, Visci'd bitume. Upon its tow' ring summit, Shrouded in pitchy fumes, retired apart, The son of Beor stood, as once he stood On Phasga, when the king of Moab fain Would have him curse the chosen seed, whom God Had bless' d. Thrice he essay'd to speak, and thrice He bless' d ; no more nor less than as the Lord Had said ; but after, sought the Nachasim, And through divining, taught the Moabites How Israel to seduce. Him Israel slew, And thence his soul to hell consign'd, where, e'en Though false at heart, imbued with sacred truth, He still vaticinates against his own. The raging fiends he saw dilate the road, Keplete with mischief, on fleet pinions bent, Nine days and nights tumultuous as they pass'd,
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