Page:Aeneid (Conington 1866).djvu/102

Thus erring from our track designed,
We grope among the waters blind.
E'en Palinurus cannot trace
The boundary line of day and night,
Or recollect his course aright
Amid the undistinguished space.
Three starless nights, three sunless days
We welter in the blinding haze.
The fourth at last the prospect clears,
And smoke from distant hills appears.
Drop sails, ply oars! the labouring crew
Toss wide the foam, and brush the blue.

Scaped from the fury of the seas,
We land upon the Strophades
(Such name in Greece they bear),
Isles in the vast Ionian main,
Where fell Celæno and her train
Of Harpies hold their lair,
Since, driven from Phineus' door, they fled
The tables where of old they fed.
So foul a plague for human crime
Ne'er issued from the Stygian slime.
A maid above, a bird below:
Noisome and foul the belly's flow:
The hands are taloned: Famine bleak
Sits ever ghastly on the cheek.
Soon as we gain the port, we see
Sleek heads of oxen pasturing free,
And goats, without a swain to guard,
Dispersed along the grassy sward.
We seize our weapons, lay them dead.
And call on Jove the spoil to share,
Then on the winding beach we spread
Our couches, and enjoy the fare;
When sudden from the mountains swoop,
Fierce charging down, the Harpy troop.