The tidings from the world below?

Great Neptune, their celestial guest,

With haste, thus answer'ed their request:

"O Jove, high heaven's majestic king,

To whom all gods due homage bring:"

(And now the monarch of the sea,

With awful reverence, bows the knee),

"I come in haste, and wish to tell

How an infernal fiend from hell,—

An Ixion spawn,—kick'd down from heaven,

And through the earth, a vagrant, driven,

[Pg 14]

A cast-off lyre, hath stol'n or begg'd,

Which he, with hempen strings, hath rigg'd;

And now, the ocean, creeks, and bays,

Makes, nightly, hideous, with his lays!

Last night, as I was going to bed,

The villain struck the fish all dead!

His dismal strain, they can't abide,

It smote their ears, and lo, they died!

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