But if, amid these Chambers drear,

Death were a sight of shuddering and of fear,

Life was a thing of stranger horror here.

For at the farther end, in yon alcove,

Where Baly should have lain, had he obey’d

Man’s common lot, behold Ereenia laid.

Strong fetters link him to the rock; his eye

Now rolls and widens, as with effort vain

He strives to break the chain,

Now seems to brood upon his misery.

Before him couch’d there lay

One of the mighty monsters of the deep,

Whom Lorrinite encountering on the way,

There station’d, his perpetual guard to keep;

In the sport of wanton power, she charm’d him there,

As if to mock the Glendoveer’s despair.

Upward his form was human, save that here

The skin was cover’d o’er with scale on scale

Compact, a panoply of natural mail.

His mouth, from ear to ear,

Weapon’d with triple teeth, extended wide,

And tusks on either side;

A double snake below, he roll’d

His supple lengths behind in many a sinuous fold.