Tells of Æneas come to land,
Whom Dido graces with her hand:
Now, lost to shame, the enamoured pair
The winter in soft dalliance wear,
Nor turn their passion-blinded eyes
On kingdom's[errata 1] rising or to rise.
Such viperous seed, where'er she goes,
On tongue and lip the goddess sows:
Then seeks Iarbas, stirs his ire,
And fans resentment into fire.
He, born a son of Ammon's race,
From Graramantian Nymph's embrace,
Had raised within his wide domains
To parent Jove a hundred fanes:
There hallowed to his mighty sire
For ever lives the vigil fire;
Fresh victim-blood makes rich the ground,
And with gay wreaths the doors are crowned.
And he, 'tis said, with fierce disdain,
The rumour maddening in his brain,
'Mid altars charged with princely gifts
To Jove in prayer his hands uplifts:
'Great Sire, to whom beneath my reign
The Moors reclined on purple grain
Lenæan offerings pour,
Behold'st thou this? or when the spheres
Thou shak'st, are ours but empty fears?
Do lightnings cleave the skies in vain,
And thunders idly roar?
A dame, who, on my frontier thrown,
Bought leave to build a puny town,
To whom ourselves, as lords, allow
A strip of barren coast to plough,
Has spurned our proffered hand, and ta'en
Æneas o'er her realm to reign.
