Page:Aeneid (Conington 1866).djvu/291

Heavy with age, the king moves on,
And keeps Æneas and his son
Close at his side, while various talk
Makes light the burden of the walk.
Admiringly the Trojan plies
From side to side his glancing eyes,
Feels every charm, and asks and hears
Each record of departed years.
Then spoke the venerable king,
From whom, O Rome, thy glories spring:
'This forest ground, from time's first dawn,
Was held by natives, Nymph and Faun,
Men who from stocks their birth had drawn
And oaks of hardest grain:
No arts were theirs: they knew not how
To couple oxen to the plough,
To store their treasured goods or spare:
The teeming boughs supplied their fare
And beasts in hunting slain.
Then from Olympus' height came down
Good Saturn, exiled from his crown
By Jove, his mightier heir:
He brought the race to union first,
Erewhile on mountain-tops dispersed,
And gave them statutes to obey,
And willed the land wherein he lay
Should Latium's title bear.
That was the storied age of gold,
So peacefully, serenely rolled
The years beneath his reign;
At length stole on a baser age,
And war's indomitable rage,
And greedy lust of gain.
Ausonians and Sicanians came,
And Saturn's land oft changed her name: