Page:Aeneid (Conington 1866).djvu/238

214 With gifts like these for aye to hold,

Rome's heart had e'en been overbold.

Ah! what a groan from Mars's plain

Shall o'er the city sound!

How wilt thou gaze on that long train,

Old Tiber, rolling to the main

Beside his new-raised mound!

No youth of Ilium's seed inspires

With hope as fair his Latian sires:

Nor Rome shall dandle on her knee

A nursling so adored as he.

O piety! O ancient faith!

O hand untamed in battle scathe!

No foe had lived before his sword,

Stemmed he on foot the war's red tide

Or with relentless rowel gored

His foaming charger's side.

Dear child of pity! shouldst thou burst

The dungeon-bars of Fate accurst,

Our own Marcellus thou!

Bring lilies here, in handfuls bring:

Their lustrous blooms I fain would fling:

Such honour to a grandson's shade

By grandsire hands may well be paid:

Yet O! it 'vails not now!'

'Mid such discourse, at will they range

The mist-clad region, dim and strange.

So when the sire the son had led

Through all the ranks of happy dead,

And stirred his spirit into flame

At thought of centuries of fame,

With prophet power he next relates

The war that in the future waits,

Italia's fated realm describes,

Latinus' town, Laurentum's tribes,