Page:Aeneid (Conington 1866).djvu/292

268 Came too the monarchs, Tibris grim,

The royal giant, large of limb,

Whose name thenceforth the river bore,

And Albula was known no more.

Myself, an exile from my home,

Went wandering far along the foam,

Till mighty chance and destined doom

Constrained my errant choice:

So came I to these regions, driven

By warning from my mother given

And Phœbus' awful voice.'

Then, as they take their onward ways,

A gate and altar he displays,

Rome's own Carmental gate:

In after years such honour found

Evander's mother, nymph renowned,

Carmentis, first of seers who sung

The heroes from Æneas sprung

And Pallanteum's fate.

Next at the grove their feet are stayed

Which Romulus the Asylum made:

Lupercal's gelid cave they see,

Named from the god of Arcady.

Then shows he Argiletum's wood,

Appealing to the scene of blood,

And tells the tale of Argus' end,

Perfidious Argus, once his friend.

Then to Tarpeia's dread abode

And Capitol he points the road.

Now all is golden; then 'twas all

O'ergrown with trees and brushwood tall.

E'en then rude hinds the spot revered:

E'en then the wood, the rock they feared.

'Here in this grove, these wooded steeps

Some god unknown his mansion keeps:

Arcadia's children deem