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Rh Their eyes have looked on Jove's own form,

When oft he summons cloud and storm,

And seen his ægis gleam.

See you yon towers in hoar decay,

The relics and memorials grey

Of old ancestral fame?

This Janus, that king Saturn walled,

And this Janiculum was called,

That bore Saturnia's name.

So talking on, at length they come

To poor Evander's lowly home:

There, where Carinæ's mansions shine,

Where spreads the Forum, lowed the kine.

The palace reached, 'These gates' he cried

'Alcides entered in his pride,

This house the god contained:

Thou too take courage, wealth despise,

And fit thee to ascend the skies,

Nor be a poor man's courtesies

Rejected or disdained.'

He spoke, and through the narrow door

The great Æneas led,

And heaped a couch upon the floor

With leaves and bear-skin spread.

Night falls, and earth and living things

Are folded in her sable wings.

But Venus, with a mother's dread

At Latium's wild alarm,

To Vulcan on the golden bed

Spoke, breathing on each word she said

Sweet love's enticing charm:

'When Greece was labouring to destroy

The fated battlements of Troy,

No aid from thee I cared to ask

For Troy's unhappy race,