Page:Aeneid (Conington 1866).djvu/102

78 Thus erring from our track designed,

We grope among the waters blind.

E'en Palinurus cannot trace

The boundary line of day and night,

Or recollect his course aright

Amid the undistinguished space.

Three starless nights, three sunless days

We welter in the blinding haze.

The fourth at last the prospect clears,

And smoke from distant hills appears.

Drop sails, ply oars! the labouring crew

Toss wide the foam, and brush the blue.

Scaped from the fury of the seas,

We land upon the Strophades

(Such name in Greece they bear),

Isles in the vast Ionian main,

Where fell Celæno and her train

Of Harpies hold their lair,

Since, driven from Phineus' door, they fled

The tables where of old they fed.

So foul a plague for human crime

Ne'er issued from the Stygian slime.

A maid above, a bird below:

Noisome and foul the belly's flow:

The hands are taloned: Famine bleak

Sits ever ghastly on the cheek.

Soon as we gain the port, we see

Sleek heads of oxen pasturing free,

And goats, without a swain to guard,

Dispersed along the grassy sward.

We seize our weapons, lay them dead.

And call on Jove the spoil to share,

Then on the winding beach we spread

Our couches, and enjoy the fare;

When sudden from the mountains swoop,

Fierce charging down, the Harpy troop.