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series: magnificat;49

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• • •

But if all should float into oblivion,
Acheron’s woes and Cocytus’1 laments
would then overflow and flood the realm
of ageless shadows, timeless despair.

The Wise Mounts surveyed their lurid home,
the sallow, fogged vault, the Tyrant’s helm,
where Wan Moon’s pallid glow scarcely shone
through her courtesans of Clouds.  “What shame,

• • •

[this poem spans magnificat 33-55, full text here]

1Two of the five rivers that separated Hades, the underworld, from the land of the living.  Acheron was the river of woe which poured into Cocytus, the river of lamentation.