Page:Aeneid (Conington 1866).djvu/228

204 Inventors, who by arts refined

The common life of human kind,

With all who grateful memory won

By services to others done:

A goodly brotherhood, bedight

With coronals of virgin white.

There as they stream along the plain

The Sibyl thus accosts the train,

Musæus o'er the rest, for he

Stands midmost in that company,

His stately head and shoulders tall

O'ertopping and admired of all:

'Say, happy souls, and thou, blest seer,

In what retreat Anchises bides:

To look on him we journey here,

Across the dread Avernian tides.'

And answer to her quest in brief

Thus made the venerable chief;

'No several home has each assigned;

We dwell where forest pathways wind,

Haunt velvet banks 'neath shady treen,

And meads with rivulets fresh and green.

But climb with me this ridgy hill,

Yon path shall take you where you will.'

He said, and led the way, and showed

The fields of dazzling light:

They gladly choose the downward road,

And issue from the height.

But sire Anchises 'neath the hill

Was calmly scanning at his will

The souls unborn now prisoned there,

One day to pass to upper air;

There as he stood, his wistful eye

Marked all his future progeny,