Page:Aeneid (Conington 1866).djvu/75

Nor only Teucrian lives expire:
Sometimes the spark of generous fire
Revives in vanquished hearts again,
And Danaan victors swell the slain.
Dire agonies, wild terrors swarm,
And Death glares grim in many a form.

First, with a train of Danaan spears,
Androgeos in our path appears:
He deems us comrades of his own,
And hails us thus with friendly tone:
'Bestir you, gallants! why so slack?
See here, while others spoil and sack
The burning town, your tardy feet
But now are coming from the fleet!'
He said: the vague replies we make
Reveal at once his dire mistake:
He sees him fallen among the toils,
And voice and foot alike recoils.
As trampling through the thorny brake
The heedless traveller stirs a snake
And in a sudden fear retires
From that fierce head, those gathering spires,
E'en so Androgeos at the sight
Was shrinking back in palsied fright.
We mass our arms, and close them round:
Surprised, and ignorant of the ground,
Their scattered ranks we breathless lay,
And Fortune crowns our first essay.
Flushed with wild joy, Corœbus cries,
'See Fortune, beckoning from the skies!
When she to safety points the way,
What can we better than obey?
Come, change we bucklers, and advance
Each with a Grecian cognizance.