Page:Aeneid (Conington 1866).djvu/295

Rh All shall be thine: thy power confess,

Nor seek by prayers to feign it less.'

He said, and to his bosom pressed

His beauteous queen, and sank to rest.

The night had crowned the cope of heaven,

And sleep's first fading bloom had driven

The slumber from men's eyes;

E'en at the hour when prudent wife,

Who day by day, to eke out life,

Minerva's distaff plies,

Relumes her fire, o'erreaching night,

And tasks her maidens by its light,

To keep her husband's bed from stain

And for their babes a pittance gain;

So, nor less swift, at labour's claim

Springs from his couch the Lord of flame.

Fast by Æolian Lipare

And fair Sicania's coast

An island rises from the sea

With smoking rocks embossed;

Beneath, a cavern drear and vast,

Hollowed by Cyclopean blast,

Rings with unearthly sound;

Bruised anvils clang their thunder-peal,

Hot hissing glows the Chalyb steel,

And fiery vapour fierce and fast

Pants up from underground;

The centre this of Vulcan's toil,

And Vulcan's name adorns the soil.

Here finds he, as he makes descent,

The Cyclops o'er their labour bent:

Brontes and Steropes are there,

And gaunt Pyracmon, stripped and bare.

The thunderbolt was in their hand,

Which Jove sends down to scourge the land;