Page:Aeneid (Conington 1866).djvu/117

Then distant darkening on the sky
Trinacrian Ætna meets the eye;
We hear the sea's stupendous roar
And broken voices on the shore:
The waters from the deep upboil,
And surf and sand the depth turmoil.
'Charybdis!' cries my sire, 'behold
The rocks that Helenus foretold!
Haste, haste, my friends, together ply
Your oars, and from destruction fly.'
So said, so done: each heeds and hears:
First Palinure to southward steers,
And southward, southward all the rest
With sail and oar their flight addressed.
Now to the sky mounts up the ship,
Now to the very shades we dip.
Thrice in the depth we feel the shock
Of billows thundering on the rock,
Thrice see the spray upheaved in mist,
And dewy stars by foam-drops kissed.
At last, bereft of wind and sun,
Upon the Cyclops' shore we run.

The port is sheltered from the blast,
Its compass unconfined and vast:
But Ætna with her voice of fear
In weltering chaos thunders near.
Now pitchy clouds she belches forth
Of cinders red and vapour swarth,
And from her caverns lifts on high
Live balls of flame that lick the sky:
Now with more dire convulsion flings
Disploded rocks, her heart's rent strings,
And lava torrents hurls to day,
A burning gulf of fiery spray.