Parents had wept. Many as leaves that fall
Gently in autumn when the sharp cold comes
Or all the birds that flock at the turn o' the year
Over the ocean to the lands of light.
They stood and prayed each one to be first taken:
They stretched their hands for love of the other side,
But the grim sailor takes now these, now those:
And some he drives a distance from the shore,
Æneas, moved and marvelling at this stir
Cried—-" O chaste Sibyl tell me why this throng
That rushes to the river? What desire
Have all these phantoms? and what rule’s award
Drives these back from the marge, let those go over
Sweeping the livid shallows with the oar?"
The old priestess replied in a few words,
"Son of Anchises of true blood divine,
Behold the deep Cocytus and dim Styx
By whom the high gods fear to swear in vain.
This shiftless crowd all is unsepulchred:
The boatman there is Charon : those who embark
The buried. None may leave this beach of horror
To cross the growling stream before that hour
That hides their white bones in a quiet tomb.
A hundred years they flutter round these shores:
Then they may cross the waters long desired."
Æneas stopped and stood there heavily
Thoughtful and sad for this unfair decree.
Wretched for lack of sepulchre he saw
Leucaspis and the Lycian convoy's chief
Orontes. They left Troy with rough sea
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