Page:Aeneid (Conington 1866).djvu/212

188 Who, voyaging that fatal night,

While on the stars he bent his sight,

Was tumbled headlong from his post

And flung upon the sea.

Scarce in the gloom the godlike man

His lost friend knew; then thus began:

'Ah Palinure! what God was he

That snatched you from my fleet and me

And plunged you in the deeps?

Apollo, true in all beside,

Here only has his word belied;

He promised you should 'scape and reach

In safety the Ausonian beach;

Lo! thus his faith he keeps!'

Then he: 'Nor false was Phœbus' shrine,

Nor godhead whelmed me in the brine.

I slipped: the helm by which I steered

Still to my tightening grasp adhered,

Broke off, and with me fell.

The ruthless powers of ocean know

'Twas not my fate that feared me so,

As lest your ship, of help forlorn,

Her pilot lost, her helm down-torn,

Should fail in such a swell.

Three long cold nights 'neath southwinds' sweep

I drifted o'er the unmeasured deep:

Scarce on the fourth dim dawn I sight

Italia from the billow's height.

Stroke after stroke I swam to shore;

And peril now was all but o'er,

When, as in cumbering garments wet

I grasped the steep with talon clutch,

With swords the barbarous natives set

On my poor life, my gear to touch.