Page:Aeneid (Conington 1866).djvu/376

352 The queen returns with streaming eyes:

'What if your heart should give

That further boon your lip denies,

And suffer him to live?

Now on the blameless victim wait

The powers of doom, or blind to fate

I wander all astray.

Yet O! may Juno's fears be vain,

And He that can, in mercy deign

To choose the better way!'

Then from the sky with eager haste

She stoops, a storm-cloud round her waist,

And, driving tempest as she flies,

Down to the embattled hosts she hies.

A phantom in Æneas' mould

She fashions, wondrous to behold,

Of hollow shadowy cloud,

Bids it the Dardan arms assume,

The shield, the helmet, and the plume,

Gives soulless words of swelling tone,

And motions like the hero's own,

As stately and as proud;

Like gliding spectres of the dead,

Or dreams that haunt the slumberer's bed.

Now, stalking in the battle's van,

The phantom menaces the man,

And pours defiant cries:

Turnus comes on in swift career,

And hurls from far his hurtling spear,

When lo! it turns and flies.

Then Turnus deems his foe retires

In craven flight, and instant fires

With hope's delusive glow:

'Æneas! why so fast?' he cried;

'Desert not thus your plighted bride;