‘What? to Mycenæ shall she go,
A conqueress, in a pageant show,
See home, sire, children, spouse again,
With Phrygian menials in her train?
Good Priam slaughtered? Troy no more?
The Dardan plains afloat with gore?
No; though no glory be to gain
From vengeance on a woman ta’en,
Yet he that rids the world of guilt
May claim the praise of blood well spilt:
’Twere joy to satiate righteous ire,
And slake my country’s funeral fire.’
Thus was I raving, past control,
In aimless turbulence of soul,
When sudden dawning on the night
(Ne’er had I known her face so bright)
My mother flashed upon my sight,
Confessed a goddess, with the mien
And stature that in heaven are seen:
Reproachfully my hand she pressed,
And thus from roseate lips addressed:
‘My son, what cruel wrongs excite
Your wrath to such pernicious height?
What mean you by this madness? where
Left you that love to me you bear?
And will you not at least inquire
What fate betides your time-worn sire?
If your Creusa still survive?
If young Ascanius be alive?
All these are trembling as for life,
With Grecian bands around them rife,
And, but for me, had sunk o’erpowered
By flame, or by the sword devoured.
Not the loathed charms of Sparta’s dame,
Nor Paris, victim of your blame,—
No, ’tis the Gods, the Gods destroy
This mighty realm, and pull down Troy.
Behold! for I will purge the haze
That darkles round your mortal gaze
And blunts its keenness—mark me still,
Nor disobey your mother’s will—
Here, where you see huge blocks unfixed,
And dust and smoke in whirlwind mixed,
Great Neptune with his three-forked mace
Upheaves the ramparts from their place,
And rocks the town from cope to base.
Here Juno at the Scæan gates,
Begirt with steel, impatient waits,
And clamorous from the navy calls
Her comrades to the captured walls.
Look back; see Pallas o’er the tower
With cloud and Gorgon redly lower.
E’en Jove to Greece his strength affords,
And fights from heaven ’gainst Dardan swords.
Then fly, and give the struggle o’er;
Myself will guard you, till once more
You stand before your father’s door.’
She spoke, and vanished from my sight,
Lost in the darkness of the night.
Dire presences their forms disclose,
And powers of terror, Ilium’s foes.
In blazing ruin sinking down:
As rustics strive with many a stroke
To fell some venerable oak,
It still keeps nodding to its doom,
Still bows its head, and shakes its plume,
Till, by degrees o’ercome, one groan
It heaves, and on the hill lies prone.
Down from my perilous height I glide,
Safe sheltered by my heavenly guide,
So thread my way through foes and fire:
The darts give place, the flames retire.
And stood within my home once more,
My sire, whom I had hoped to bear
Safe to the hills with chiefest care,
Refused to lengthen out his span
And live on earth an exiled man.
‘You, you,’ he cries, ‘bestir your flight,
Whose blood is warm, whose limbs are light:
Had Heaven not willed my life to cease,
Heaven would have kept my home in peace.
Enough, that I have once been saved,
Survivor of a town enslaved.
Now leave me: be your farewell said
To this my corpse, and count me dead.
My hand shall win me death: the foe
Such mercy as I need will show,
Will strip my spoils, and pass for brave.
He lacks not much that lacks a grave.
Long have I lived to curse my birth,
A useless cumberer of the earth,
E’en from the day when Heaven’s dread sire
In anger scathed me with his fire.’
While we, our eyes with sorrow wet,
All on our knees, wife, husband, boy,
Implore—O let him not destroy
Himself and us, nor lend his weight
To the incumbent load of fate!
He hears not, but refuses still,
Unchanged alike in place and will.
Desperate, again to arms I fly,
And make my wretched choice to die:
For what deliverance now was mine,
What help in fortune or design?
‘What? leave my sire behind and flee?
Such words from you? such words to me?
The watch that guards a parent’s lip,
Lets it such dire suggestion slip?
If Heaven in truth has willed to spare
No relic of a town so fair,
If you and all wherein you joy
Must burn to feed the flames of Troy,
See there, Death waits you at the door:
See Pyrrhus, steeped in Priam’s gore,
Repeats his double crime once more:
The son before his father’s eyes,
The father at the altar dies.
O mother! was it then for this
I passed where fires and javelins hiss
Safe in thy conduct, but to see
Foes in my home’s dear sanctuary,
All murdered, father, wife, and child,
Each in the other’s blood defiled?
My arms! my arms! the fatal day
Calls, and the vanquished must obey;
Return me to the Danaan crew!
Let me the yielded fight renew!
No; one at least these walls contain
Who will not unavenged be slain.’
And to my arm make fast my shield,
And issue from the door; when see!
Creusa clings around my knee,
And offers with a tender grace
Iulus to his sire’s embrace:
‘If but to
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