The Greeks also believed in an Elys'ium--some distant island of
the ocean, ever cooled by refreshing breezes, and where spring
perpetual reigned--to which, after death, the blessed were conveyed,
and where they were permitted to enjoy it happy destiny. In the
Fourth Book of the Odyssey the sea god Pro'teus, in predicting
for Menelaus a happier lot than that of Hades, thus describes the
Elysian plains:

But oh! beloved of Heaven! reserved for thee
A happier lot the smiling Fates decree:
Free from that law beneath whose mortal sway
Matter is changed and varying forms decay,
Elysium shall be thine--the blissful plains
Of utmost earth, where Rhadaman'thus reigns.
Joys ever young, unmixed with pain or fear,
Fill the wide circle of the eternal year.
Stern Winter smiles on that auspicious clime;
The fields are florid with unfading prime;
From the bleak pole no winds inclement blow,
Mould the round hail, or flake the fleecy snow;
But from the breezy deep the blest inhale
The fragrant murmurs of the western gale.
--POPE'S Trans.

Similar views are expressed by the lyric poet PINDAR in the
following lines:

All whose steadfast virtue thrice
Each side the grave unchanged hath stood,