Page:Aeneid (Conington 1866).djvu/279

Rh So Latium fares: the Trojan sees,

And fluctuates in perplexities:

By thousand warring cares distraught

This way and that he whirls his thought.

As flashes light upon the face

Of water in a brazen vase

From sun or lunar rays:

From spot to spot behold it dart,

And now it takes an upward start

And on the ceiling plays.

Night came: all life was buried deep,

Man, beast, and bird, in placid sleep:

The chief beneath the cope of heaven,

His heart with thought of battle riven,

His limbs beside the river throws

And courts the quiet of repose.

When rising through the poplar wood

Appears the genius of the flood:

A grey gauze mantle wrapped him round;

With shadowy reed his brows were crowned:

Then thus he spoke, and laid to rest

The cares that racked the hero's breast.

'O seed of Heaven, who bring once more

Lost Pergamus to this our shore,

And keep old Troy in life,

Long looked for on Laurentian ground,

Behold your home, your mansion found,

Nor fear though foemen hem you round

With menaces of strife.

Heaven's anger is at length assuaged,

And ceased the feud of Gods enraged.

E'en now, lest haply you should deem

My words the coinage of a dream,

On woody banks before your eye

A thirty-farrowed sow shall lie,