Page:Aeneid (Conington 1866).djvu/112

88 Pay vows to Juno: overbear

Her queenly soul with gift and prayer:

So, wafted o'er Trinacria's main,

Italia you at length shall gain.

There when you land at Cumæ's town,

Where forests o'er Avernus frown,

Your eyes shall see the frenzied maid

Who spells the future in the shade

Of her deep cavern, and consigns

To scattered leaves her mystic lines.

These, when the words of fate are traced,

She leaves within her cavern placed:

Awhile they rest in order ranged,

The sequence and the place unchanged.

But should the breeze through chance-oped door

Whirl them in air 'twixt roof and floor,

She lets them flutter, nor takes pain

To set them in their rank again:

The pilgrims unresolved return,

And her prophetic threshold spurn.

So do not you: nor count too dear

The hours you lavish on the seer,

But, though your comrades chide your stay

And breezes whisper 'hence away,'

Approach her humbly and entreat

Herself the presage to repeat,

And open of her own free choice

The prisoned flow of tongue and voice.

The martial tribes of Italy,

The story of your wars to be,

And how to face, or how to fly

Each cloud that darkens on your sky,

Her lips shall tell, and with success

The remnant of your journey bless.

Thus far may run these words of mine.

Go on, and make our Troy divine.'