Were crowding to its verdant banks:
As bees afield in summer clear
Beset the flowerets far and near
And round the fair white lilies pour:
The deep hum sounds the champaign o’er.
Æneas, startled at the scene,
Asks wondering what the noise may mean,
What river this, or what the throng
That crowds so thick its banks along.
His sire replies: ‘The souls are they
Whom Fate will reunite to clay:
There stooping down on Lethe’s brink
A deep oblivious draught they drink.
Fain would I muster in review
Before your eyes that shadowy crew,
That you, their sire, may joy with me
To think of new-found Italy.’
‘O father! and can thought conceive
That happy souls this realm would leave,
And seek the upper sky,
With sluggish clay to reunite?
This direful longing for the light,
Whence comes it, say, and why?’
‘Learn, then, my son, nor longer pause
In wonder at the hidden cause,’
Replies Anchises, and withdraws
The veil before his eye.
The moon’s pale orb, the starry train,
Are nourished by a soul,
A bright intelligence, whose flame
Glows in each member of the frame
And stirs the mighty whole.
Thence souls of men and cattle spring,
And the gay people of the wing,
And those strange shapes that ocean hides
Beneath the smoothness of his tides.
A fiery strength inspires their lives,
An essence that from heaven derives,
Though clogged in part by limbs of clay;
And the dull “vesture of decay.”
Hence wild desires and grovelling fears,
And human laughter, human tears:
Immured in dungeon-seeming night,
They look abroad, yet see no light.
Nay, when at last the life has fled,
And left the body cold and dead,
E’en then there passes not away
The painful heritage of clay;
Full many a long contracted stain
Perforce must linger deep in grain.
So penal sufferings they endure
For ancient crime, to make them pure:
Some hang aloft in open view
For winds to pierce them through and through
While others purge their guilt deep-dyed
In burning fire or whelming tide.
Each for himself, we all sustain
The durance of our ghostly pain;
Then to Elysium we repair,
The few, and breathe this blissful air:
Till, many a length of ages past,
The inherent taint is cleansed at last,
And nought remains but ether bright,
The quintessence of heavenly light.
All these, when centuries ten times told
The wheel of destiny have rolled,
The voice divine from far and wide
Calls up to Lethe’s river-side,
That earthward they may pass once more
Remembering not the things before,
And with a blind propension yearn
To fleshly bodies to return.’
Æneas and the Sibyl too
Amid the shadowy throng,
And mounts a hillock, whence the eye
Might form and countenance descry
As each one passed along.
‘Now listen what the future fame
Shall follow the Dardanian name,
What glorious spirits wait
Our progeny to furnish forth:
My tongue shall name each soul of worth,
And show you of your fate.
See you yon gallant youth advance
Leaning upon a headless lance?
He next in upper air holds place,
First offspring of the Italian race
Commixed with ours, your latest child
By Alban name of Silvius styled,
Whom to your age Lavinia fair
In silvan solitude shall bear,
King, sire of kings, by whom comes down
Through Trojan hands the Alban crown.
Nearest to him see Procas shine,
The glory of Dardania’s line,
And Numitor and Capys too,
And one that draws his name from you,
Silvius Æneas, mighty he
Alike in arms and piety,
Should Fate’s high pleasure e’er command
The Alban sceptre to his hand.
Look how they bloom in youth’s fresh flower!
What promise theirs of martial power!
Mark you the civic wreath they wear,
The oaken garland in their hair?
These, these are they, whose hands shall crown
The mountain heights with many a town,
Shall Gabii and Nomentum rear,
There plant Collatia, Cora here,
And leave to after years their stamp
On Bola and on Inuus’ camp:
Names that shall then be far renowned,
Now nameless spots of unknown ground.
There to his grandsire’s fortune clings
Young Romulus, of Mars’ true breed;
From Ilia’s womb the warrior springs,
Assaracus’ authentic seed.
See on his helm the double crest,
The token by his sire impressed,
That marks him out betimes to share
The heritage of upper air.
Lo! by his fiat called to birth
Imperial Rome shall rise,
Extend her reign to utmost earth,
Her genius to the skies,
And with a wall of girdling stone
Embrace seven hills herself alone—
Blest in an offspring wise and strong:
So through great cities rides along
The mighty Mother, crowned with towers,
Around her knees a numerous line,
A hundred grandsons, all divine,
All tenants of Olympian bowers.
Behold a glorious family,
Your sons and sons of Rome:
Lo! Cæsar there and all his seed,
Iulus’ progeny, decreed
To pass ’neath heaven’s high dome.
This, this is he, so oft the theme
Of your prophetic fancy’s dream,
Augustus Cæsar, god by birth;
Restorer of the age of gold
In lands where Saturn ruled of old:
O’er Ind and Garamant extreme
Shall stretch his reign, that spans the earth
Look to that land which lies afar
Beyond the path of sun or star,
Where Atlas on his shoulder rears
The burden of the incumbent spheres.
Egypt e’en now and Caspia hear
The muttered voice of many a seer,
And Nile’s
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