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Swift breaks Eumelus on the games
With tidings of the fleet in flames,
And, looking back, the gazers spy
The smoke-clouds blackening on the sky.
Ascanius first, as o'er the mead
He leads his young array,
Spurs to the camp his fiery steed,
Nor can his guardians, blown with speed,
His headlong impulse stay:
And 'Wretched countrywomen! whence'
He cries 'this rage that robs your sense?
No Greek encampment you consume:
No—'tis your own dear hopes ye doom.
Look! your Ascanius speaks!' before
His feet upon the sand
He flung the helm he lately wore
While marshalling his band.
Æneas and the Trojan host
Come hurrying, hasting to the coast.
The guilty matrons, winged with dread,
Along the devious shores are fled,
Hide in the tangles of the grove,
Or huddling seek some rocky cove:
Their frenzied enterprise they rue,
And loathe the blessed light of heaven;
With sobering eyes their friends they view,
And Juno from their souls is driven.
Yet still with unabated power
The fire continues to devour:
'Twixt the soaked timbers oozes slow
Thick vapour from the smouldering tow;
The threads of pestilential flame
Steal downward through each vessel's frame;
Nor all the efforts of the brave
Nor streaming floods avail to save.