Page:Aeneid (Conington 1866).djvu/218

194 The gods, at whose command to-day

Through these dim shades I take my way,

Tread the waste realm of sunless blight,

And penetrate abysmal night,

They drove me forth: nor could I know

My flight would work such cruel woe.

Stay, stay your step awhile, nor fly

So quickly from Æneas' eye.

Whom would you shun? this brief space o'er,

Fate suffers us to meet no more.'

Thus while the briny tears run down

The hero strives to calm her frown,

Still pleading 'gainst disdain:

She on the ground averted kept

Hard eyes that neither smiled nor wept,

Nor bated more of her stern mood

Than if a monument she stood

Of firm Marpesian grain.

At length she tears her from the place

And hies her, still with sullen face,

Into the embowering grove,

Where her first lord, Sychæus, shares

In tender interchange of cares,

And gives her love for love;

Æneas tracks her as she flies,

With bleeding heart and tearful eyes.

Then on his journey he proceeds:

And now they gain the furthest meads,

The place which warriors haunt;

There sees he Tydeus, and the heir

Of the Arcadian nymph, and there

Adrastus pale and gaunt.

There Trojan ghosts in battle slain,

Whoso dirge was loud in upper sky: