Page:Virgil - The Georgics, Thomas Nevile, 1767.djvu/122

 110 Replace full goblets, heap the board with meats:

The Altars burn with aromatic sweets.

Of Lydian wine these bowls, the Goddess said,

Take, and to Ocean a libation shed.

Strait she invokes the Parent-god with pray'r,

Ocean, and sister nymphs, of whom these share

The charge of rivers, those of sylvan bow'rs:

Thrice liquid nectar on the fire she pours;

Thrice to the roof the flames aspiring shine:

Elate, and strengthen'd by the prosp'rous sign,

Thus she begins: in the Carpathian tides

Cerulean Proteus, prescient seer, resides,

Who in his car the boundless level sweeps,

By fishes drawn, and monsters of the deeps.

Emathia's ports, and his Pallene's bay,

He visits now; to him we reverence pay,

Ev'n Nereus honours him: his eye can see

All, that once was, that is, and e'er will be;

The boon of Neptune, to his care who gave

His herds, and Phocæ wallowing in the wave.

Him first, my son, with fetters you must seize,

Ere he unfold the cause of the disease,

And aid the cure: no precepts he'll declare,

Unforc'd, nor deem to soften him by pray'r: The