Page:Virgil (Collins).djvu/132

122 Green spaces, folded in with trees,

A paradise of pleasaunces;

Around the champaign mantles bright

The fulness of purpureal light;

Another sun and stars they know,

That shine like ours, but shine below."

There are assembled the illustrious dead—warriors who have died for their country; priests of unstained life; bards who have never perverted their powers; all who have been benefactors of mankind,—

A goodly brotherhood, bedight

With coronals of virgin white."

Shadows as they are, all the items of their happiness are material. The games of the palæstra, the song of the bard, the care of ghostly horses and ghostly chariots, form the interests of this world of spirits;—the interests of earth, without earth's substantial realities. The poet found his imagination fail him, as it fails us all, when he tries to paint the details of an incorporeal existence.

Among these happy spirits the hero finds his father Anchises. He recognises and addresses him. Anchises had expected the visit, and receives him with such tears of joy as spirits may shed. But when Æneas strives to embrace him, the conditions of this spiritual world forbid it:—

Thrice strove the son his sire to clasp;

Thrice the vain phantom mocked his grasp:

No vision of the drowsy night,

No airy current, half so light."