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Their eyes have looked on Jove's own form,
When oft he summons cloud and storm,
And seen his ægis gleam.
See you yon towers in hoar decay,
The relics and memorials grey
Of old ancestral fame?
This Janus, that king Saturn walled,
And this Janiculum was called,
That bore Saturnia's name.
So talking on, at length they come
To poor Evander's lowly home:
There, where Carinæ's mansions shine,
Where spreads the Forum, lowed the kine.
The palace reached, 'These gates' he cried
'Alcides entered in his pride,
This house the god contained:
Thou too take courage, wealth despise,
And fit thee to ascend the skies,
Nor be a poor man's courtesies
Rejected or disdained.'
He spoke, and through the narrow door
The great Æneas led,
And heaped a couch upon the floor
With leaves and bear-skin spread.

Night falls, and earth and living things
Are folded in her sable wings.
But Venus, with a mother's dread
At Latium's wild alarm,
To Vulcan on the golden bed
Spoke, breathing on each word she said
Sweet love's enticing charm:
'When Greece was labouring to destroy
The fated battlements of Troy,
No aid from thee I cared to ask
For Troy's unhappy race,