Page:Virgil - The Georgics, Thomas Nevile, 1767.djvu/122

 

Replace full goblets, heap the board with meats:
The Altars burn with aromatic sweets. 449
Of Lydian wine these bowls, the Goddess said,
Take, and to Ocean a libation shed.
Strait she invokes the Parent-god with pray'r,
Ocean, and sister nymphs, of whom these share 450
The charge of rivers, those of sylvan bow'rs:
Thrice liquid nectar on the fire she pours;
Thrice to the roof the flames aspiring shine:
Elate, and strengthen'd by the prosp'rous sign,
Thus she begins: in the Carpathian tides 455
Cerulean Proteus, prescient seer, resides,
Who in his car the boundless level sweeps,
By fishes drawn, and monsters of the deeps.
Emathia's ports, and his Pallene's bay,
He visits now; to him we reverence pay, 460
Ev'n Nereus honours him: his eye can see
All, that once was, that is, and e'er will be;
The boon of Neptune, to his care who gave
His herds, and Phocæ wallowing in the wave.
Him first, my son, with fetters you must seize,
Ere he unfold the cause of the disease, 466
And aid the cure: no precepts he'll declare,
Unforc'd, nor deem to soften him by pray'r:

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