Page:Aeneid (Conington 1866).djvu/238

With gifts like these for aye to hold,
Rome's heart had e'en been overbold.
Ah! what a groan from Mars's plain
Shall o'er the city sound!
How wilt thou gaze on that long train,
Old Tiber, rolling to the main
Beside his new-raised mound!
No youth of Ilium's seed inspires
With hope as fair his Latian sires:
Nor Rome shall dandle on her knee
A nursling so adored as he.
O piety! O ancient faith!
O hand untamed in battle scathe!
No foe had lived before his sword,
Stemmed he on foot the war's red tide
Or with relentless rowel gored
His foaming charger's side.
Dear child of pity! shouldst thou burst
The dungeon-bars of Fate accurst,
Our own Marcellus thou!
Bring lilies here, in handfuls bring:
Their lustrous blooms I fain would fling:
Such honour to a grandson's shade
By grandsire hands may well be paid:
Yet O! it 'vails not now!'

'Mid such discourse, at will they range
The mist-clad region, dim and strange.
So when the sire the son had led
Through all the ranks of happy dead,
And stirred his spirit into flame
At thought of centuries of fame,
With prophet power he next relates
The war that in the future waits,
Italia's fated realm describes,
Latinus' town, Laurentum's tribes,