The Fourth Book of Virgils Aeneid and the Ninth Book of Voltaires Henriad | Page 7

sister added to
the Giant brood,
With wings, with feet, with dreadful speed endu'd.

Huge horrid monster!----Ev'ry plume she wears
230 A watching eye
conceal'd beneath it bears,
And strange to tell--on ev'ry feather hung
A gaping ear--a never
ceasing tongue.
Sleep never enter'd yet those glaring eyes;
All night
'twixt earth and heav'n she buzzing flies;
235 All day sits watchful on
the turrets height,
Or palace roof, the babbling town to fright.
Falsehood and truth, she
spreads with equal real,
To gaping crouds rejoicing to reveal
What
is, what was, and what has never been.
240 Æneas fled from
Troy;--The Tyrian queen,
Her bed, her sceptre, with an exile shares;
And now forgetful of all
other cares,
With shameful passion blindly led astray,
In love and
joy they waste the hours away.
245 This, all around Fame glories to diffuse,

And to Iarba next her flight pursues,
To fan the flame that in his
bosom glows.
To Jove himself, his birth the monarch owes;
A
nymph his mother, by a forc'd embrace;
250 And to the God, the
author of his race,
Their lofty domes an hundred temples raise,
An hundred shrines with
flames perpetual blaze,
Hung round with wreaths: through all his vast
domain, The soil was rich with blood of victims skin.
255 He, by the
dire report, to madness fir'd,
Vents his dark soul by jealous rage inspir'd,
Before the gods, while
curling incense blaz'd,
His suppliant hands to Jove almighty rais'd.

«All potent Jove! those eyes that view the Moor
260 From painted
coaches full libations pour,
See they not this? Or when thy thunder rolls
Do causeless fears, O
Father, shake our souls?
Is there no vengeance in the bolt you poise?

Is all but fancied horror, empty noise?
265 A woman, wand'ring
outcast on our shore,
Bargains a petty spot and owns no more,
Accepts a portion of our
coast to till,
Ev'n from our pity; from our royal will;
And she--the
offer of our hand disdains,
270 And she--Æneas in her court detains!
That Paris, with that woman crew, that wear
Those Phrygian bonnets
on their scented hair,
Enjoys the spoil.--while I--thy power proclaim,

Adorn thy shrine, and feed on empty fame».
275 Thus, while he
pray'd and bow'd before the shrine:
Th' Almighty hearing, throws his eyes divine
On Lybia's coast; there
views the lovelest pair
Forgetting fame and ev'ry nobler care,
And
quick commands the herald of the sky.
280 «Go, call the zephyrs,
spread your pinnions, fly,
Fly to the Dardan chief who ling'ring waits
Mindless in Carthage of

the promis'd fates;
Swift as the rushing wind, my order bear.
Not
such a man--unworthy of her care,
285 His mother promis'd, when
her powerful charms,
Twice, made me save him from the Grecian arms.
No--For Hesperia's
realm a future king,
Thro' whom, from Teucer's blood untam'd to
spring
A warlike race, the pregnant seeds to lay,
290 Of boundless
empire, universal sway.
If he, unmov'd, such' proferr'd greatness sees,
Renouncing glory for
ignoble ease.
} Julus too, must he forego his claim?
} Spoil'd by a
father of his birthright fame,
295 } The pow'r, the glory, of the
Roman name.
What mean these structures in a hostile place?
What hopes deceitful
from his mind efface
Th' Ausonian offspring, the Lavinian land?

But let him sail--no more--bear my command».
300 Jove spoke--His
son obey'd:--and to his feet
Bound the light wings of gold--wings ever fleet,
Which over earth
and sea, through yielding air,
Swift as the wind the rapid herald bear;

305 And took the rod that calls the trembling ghost
To light, or binds it to the Stygian coast,
Gives balmy slumber, breaks
the sweet repose,
Weighs down the lid of dying eyes that close.

Thro' storms and dripping clouds with this he glides; Now o'er the
summit and the hoary sides
310 Of Atlas hangs, pois'd on whose
shoulders rest
The Heav'ns: his head eternal storms infest,
Crown'd with dark pines,
inwrap'd with gloomy clouds; Primeval snow his shaggy bosom
shrouds,
Furrow'd with streams that down his chin descend,
315
And chains of ice from his broad beard that pend.
Here light the God--Balanc'd his equal wings,
And darting forward to

the ocean flings.
Through misty air as nearer earth he drew,
Cutting
the winds and whirling sands, he flew
320 Like birds, that hov'ring
o'er the fishy main,
Drop from the sky', and skim the watry plain.
So from the height his
mighty grandsire props,
Down on the pinion light Cyllenius drops;

And scarce his winged feet had touch'd the ground,
325 Æneas with
the busy crew he found,
Planning new structures for the rising town.
Bright with a radiant
gem his sword hung down,
A mantle graceful o'er his shoulder
thrown
With sparkling gold and Tyrian purple shone.
330 'Twas
Dido's present: thro' the blushing thread
The docile gold her taper fingers led.
The god accosts him.--«With
uxorious care
The walls of Carthage does Æneas rear,
Himself
forgotten and his future state?
335 But he that reigns--the pow'r who
next to Fate,
Roles Earth and Heav'n, and moves them with a nod,
Thro' skies
unclouded, he--the ruling God,
This to your ear commands me to
convey;
Why on the Lybian shore this fond delay?
340 These rising
tow'rs--If satisfied with these,
You barter glory