Page:Aeneid (Conington 1866).djvu/291

Rh Heavy with age, the king moves on,

And keeps Æneas and his son

Close at his side, while various talk

Makes light the burden of the walk.

Admiringly the Trojan plies

From side to side his glancing eyes,

Feels every charm, and asks and hears

Each record of departed years.

Then spoke the venerable king,

From whom, O Rome, thy glories spring:

'This forest ground, from time's first dawn,

Was held by natives, Nymph and Faun,

Men who from stocks their birth had drawn

And oaks of hardest grain:

No arts were theirs: they knew not how

To couple oxen to the plough,

To store their treasured goods or spare:

The teeming boughs supplied their fare

And beasts in hunting slain.

Then from Olympus' height came down

Good Saturn, exiled from his crown

By Jove, his mightier heir:

He brought the race to union first,

Erewhile on mountain-tops dispersed,

And gave them statutes to obey,

And willed the land wherein he lay

Should Latium's title bear.

That was the storied age of gold,

So peacefully, serenely rolled

The years beneath his reign;

At length stole on a baser age,

And war's indomitable rage,

And greedy lust of gain.

Ausonians and Sicanians came,

And Saturn's land oft changed her name: