Page:Aeneid (Conington 1866).djvu/208

When lo, as morning's orient red
Just brightens o'er the sky,
The firm ground bellows 'neath their tread,
The wooded summits rock and sway,
And through the shade the hell-hounds' bay
Proclaims the goddess nigh.
'Back, ye unhallowed' shrieks the seer
'And leave the whole wide forest clear:
Come, great Æneas, tread the way,
And keep your falchion bared:
Now for a heart that scorns dismay:
Now for a soul prepared.'
This said, with madness in her face
She plunged into the cave:
He with her lengthening stride keeps pace,
As fearless and as brave.

Eternal Powers, whose sway controls
The empire of departed souls,
Ye too, throughout whose wide domain
Blank Night and grisly Silence reign,
Hoar Chaos, awful Phlegethon,
What ear has heard let tongue make known:
Vouchsafe your sanction, nor forbid
To utter things in darkness hid.

Along the illimitable shade
Darkling and lone their way they made,
Through the vast kingdom of the dead,
An empty void, though tenanted:
So travellers in a forest move
With but the uncertain moon above,
Beneath her niggard light,
When Jupiter has hid from view
The heaven, and Nature's every hue
Is lost in blinding night.