Page:Aeneid (Conington 1866).djvu/228

Inventors, who by arts refined
The common life of human kind,
With all who grateful memory won
By services to others done:
A goodly brotherhood, bedight
With coronals of virgin white.
There as they stream along the plain
The Sibyl thus accosts the train,
Musæus o'er the rest, for he
Stands midmost in that company,
His stately head and shoulders tall
O'ertopping and admired of all:
'Say, happy souls, and thou, blest seer,
In what retreat Anchises bides:
To look on him we journey here,
Across the dread Avernian tides.'
And answer to her quest in brief
Thus made the venerable chief;
'No several home has each assigned;
We dwell where forest pathways wind,
Haunt velvet banks 'neath shady treen,
And meads with rivulets fresh and green.
But climb with me this ridgy hill,
Yon path shall take you where you will.'
He said, and led the way, and showed
The fields of dazzling light:
They gladly choose the downward road,
And issue from the height.

But sire Anchises 'neath the hill
Was calmly scanning at his will
The souls unborn now prisoned there,
One day to pass to upper air;
There as he stood, his wistful eye
Marked all his future progeny,