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Shall at thy altar stand:
His horns, which gold shall overlay,
E'en now anticipate the fray:
His feet spurn up the sand,'
Jove heard, and instant from the left
He thundered through the blue:
Instant the bow was heard to twang;
The shaft along the welkin sang,
Numanus' haughty head it cleft,
And pierced his temples through.
'Go, vent on worth your idle taunts:
Such answer to Rutulian vaunts
Twice captuted Phrygians send!'
Ascanius spoke: the sons of Troy
Mount skyward in their rapturous joy,
And heaven with shoutings rend.
Phœbus that hour from heaven's dim height
Surveyed the fortunes of the fight,
And thus from off his throne of cloud
Bespoke the youthful victor proud:
''Tis thus that men to heaven aspire:
Go on, and raise your glories higher,
Of gods the son, of gods the sire!
Beneath Assaracus's seed
The war-worn land shall cease to bleed,
Nor may our narrow Troy contain
The compass of so grand a reign.'
So speaking, from the skies he darts,
The fluttering air before him parts,
And quickly to Ascanius hies,
In Butes' venerable guise.
Once Butes kept Anchises' door,
Anchises' arms in battle bore:
Now other cares his age employ,
The guardian of the princely boy.