Page:Vida's Art of Poetry.djvu/20




 * to the muse's stream the pupil bring,

To drink large draughts of the Pierian spring; And from his birth the sacred bard adore, Nursed by the nine, on Mincio's flow'ry shore; And ask the gods his numbers to inspire, With like invention, majesty, and fire. He reads Ascanius' deeds with equal flame, And longs with him to run at nobler game. For youths of ages past he makes his moan, And learns to pity years so like his own; Which with too swift, and too severe a doom, The fate of war had hurri'd to the tomb. His eyes, for Pallas, and for Lausus, flow, Mourn with their sires, and weep another's woe. But when Euryalus, in all his charms, Is snatch'd by fate from his dear mother's arms, And as he rolls in death, the purple flood Streams out, and stains his snowy limbs with blood, His soul the pangs of gen'rous sorrow pierce, And a new tear steals out at every verse. Mean