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If, baffled, you relinquish hope
That Latium's arms with Troy may cope,
If our estate have fallen so low,
Crushed by a single overthrow,
Nor Fortune can her steps retrace,
Stretch we weak hands and sue for grace.
Yet O! were aught of valour here,
Sure his were deemed the happiest cheer,
Who, sooner than behold such stain,
Fell prone, and dying bit the plain.
But if resources still are ours,
Unbroken still our martial powers,
If Italy e'en yet affords
Fresh tribes to draw their friendly swords,
If Trojan blood in streams has run
To gain the vantage Troy has won
(For they too have their deaths; the blast
Of withering war o'er all has passed),
Why fail we on the threshold? why,
Ere sounds the trumpet, quake and fly?
Time, toil, and circumstance full oft
A humbled cause has raised aloft,
And Fortune whom she mocked before
Has placed on solid ground once more.
Ætolian Diomede will send
No help our efforts to befriend;
But brave Messapus yet is here,
Tolumnius too, auspicious seer,
And all the chiefs of all the bands
That swell our ranks from neighbouring lands:
Nor scant the trophies that await
The flower of Latium's own estate.
Camilla too, the Volscian maid,
Her horsemen brings in steel arrayed.
If 'tis on me the Trojans call
And my one life imperils all,