Page:Aeneid (Conington 1866).djvu/112

Pay vows to Juno: overbear
Her queenly soul with gift and prayer:
So, wafted o'er Trinacria's main,
Italia you at length shall gain.
There when you land at Cumæ's town,
Where forests o'er Avernus frown,
Your eyes shall see the frenzied maid
Who spells the future in the shade
Of her deep cavern, and consigns
To scattered leaves her mystic lines.
These, when the words of fate are traced,
She leaves within her cavern placed:
Awhile they rest in order ranged,
The sequence and the place unchanged.
But should the breeze through chance-oped door
Whirl them in air 'twixt roof and floor,
She lets them flutter, nor takes pain
To set them in their rank again:
The pilgrims unresolved return,
And her prophetic threshold spurn.
So do not you: nor count too dear
The hours you lavish on the seer,
But, though your comrades chide your stay
And breezes whisper 'hence away,'
Approach her humbly and entreat
Herself the presage to repeat,
And open of her own free choice
The prisoned flow of tongue and voice.
The martial tribes of Italy,
The story of your wars to be,
And how to face, or how to fly
Each cloud that darkens on your sky,
Her lips shall tell, and with success
The remnant of your journey bless.
Thus far may run these words of mine.
Go on, and make our Troy divine.'