Page:Aeneid (Conington 1866).djvu/313

Rh Grant that their texture ne'er may fail

From, voyage long or stormy gale:

Such vantage let my favourites reap

From birth on our Idæan steep.'

Her son, the Mighty One, replies,

Who rolls the orbits of the skies:

'O mother! wherefore strive in vain

The course of destiny to strain?

Shall vessels made by mortal hand

The immortals' privilege command?

Shall man ride safe in danger's hour?

Claimed ever god so vast a power?

Nay rather, when, their service o'er,

They reach at length the Ausonian shore,

What ships, escaping wind and wave,

In Latium land the Dardan brave,

Shall change their mortal shape for ours

And swim the main as sea-god powers,

As Galatè and Doto sweep

O'er the broad surface of the deep.'

He said, and called to seal his vow

His Stygian brother's lake,

The banks where pitch and sand and mud

Together mix their murky flood,

And with the bending of his brow

Made all Olympus shake.

And now the promised time was come,

The fated years had filled their sum,

When Turnus' wrong reminds the dame

To shield her sacred ships from flame.

A sudden light strikes blind their eyes:

A cloud runs westward o'er the skies,

And Ida's choirs appear: