Page:Aeneid (Conington 1866).djvu/384

Each swain that wont the plough to tend
To speedy covert flies,
The traveller hides his fenceless head
In caverned rock or torrent's bed,
Till parting clouds restore the sun,
And man resumes the day begun:
So stands Æneas 'neath the blast
Of wintry war, till all be past,
And chiding, threatening, seeks to stay
Young Lausus from his bold essay:
'Fond youth! why rush so fast on fate,
And spend your strength on task too great?
Love blinds you to impending ill'—
In vain; the fond youth rages still.
And now more fierce the passions rise
That lighten from the Trojan's eyes,
And Lausus' miserable thread
The hand of Fate at length must shred:
Lo! with full force Æneas drives
The weapon, and his bosom rives.
Through the light shield that made him bold,
The vest his mother wove with gold,
The blade held on: his breast runs o'er
With gurgling rivulets of gore;
While to the phantom world away
Flits the sad soul, and leaves the clay.
But when Anchises' son surveyed
The fair, fair face so ghastly made,
He groaned, by tenderness unmanned,
And stretched the sympathizing hand,
As reproduced he sees once more
The love that to his sire he bore.
'Alas! what honour, hapless youth,
To those great deeds, that soul of truth,
Can good Æneas show?