Page:Aeneid (Conington 1866).djvu/467

Vouchsafe me yet one act of grace
For Latium's sake, your sire's own race:
No ordinance of fate withstands
The boon a nation's pride demands.
When treaty, aye, and love's blest rite
The warring hosts in peace unite,
Respect the ancient stock, nor make
The Latian tribes their style forsake,
Nor Troy's nor Teucer's surname take,
Nor garb nor language let them change
For foreign speech and vesture strange,
But still abide the same:
Let Latium prosper as she will,
Their thrones let Alban monarchs fill;
Let Rome be glorious on the earth,
The centre of Italian worth;
But fallen Troy be fallen still,
The nation and the name,'

With mirthful laughter in his eye
The world's Creator made reply:
'There Jove's own sister spoke indeed,
Our father Saturn's other seed,
So vast the waves of wrath that roll
In that indomitable soul!
But come, let baffled rage give way:
I grant your prayer and yield the day.
Ausonia shall abide the same,
Unchanged in customs, speech, and name:
The sons of Troy, unseen though felt,
In fusion with the mass shall melt:
Myself will give them rites, and all
Still by the name of Latins call.
The blended race that thence shall rise
Of mixed Ausonian blood