Receive the grateful offerings which we pay,
And smile propitious on thy solemn day!"
In numbers thus they sung: above the rest,
The den and death of Cacus crown the feast.
The woods to hollow vales convey the sound,
The vales to hills, and hills the notes rebound.
The rites performed, the cheerful train retire.
Betwixt young Pallas and his aged sire,
The Trojan passed, the city to survey,
And pleasing talk beguiled the tedious way.
The stranger cast around his curious eyes,
New objects viewing still with new surprise;
With greedy joy inquires of various things,
And acts and monuments of ancient kings.
Then thus the founder of the Roman towers:-
"These woods were first the seat of sylvan powers,
Of Nymphs and Fauns, and savage men, who took
Their birth from trunks of trees and stubborn oak.
Nor laws they knew, nor manners, nor the care
Of labouring oxen, nor the shining share,
Nor arts of gain, nor what they gained to spare.
Their exercise the chase; the running flood
Supplied their thirst, the trees supplied their food.
Then Saturn came, who fled the power of Jove,
Robbed of his realms, and banished from above.
The men, dispersed on hills, to towns he brought,
And laws ordained, and civil customs taught,
And Latium called the land where safe he lay
From his unduteous son, and his usurping sway.
With his mild empire, peace and plenty came;
And hence the golden times derived their name.
A more degenerate and discoloured age
Succeeded this, with avarice and rage.
The Ausonians then, and bold Sicanians, came;
And Saturn's empire often changed the name.
Then kings-gigantic Tybris, and the rest—
With arbitrary sway the land oppressed:

For Tyber's flood was Albula before,

Till, from the tyrant's fate, his name it bore.
I last arrived, driven from my native home,
By fortune's power, and fate's resistless doom.
Long tossed on seas, I sought this happy land,
Warned by my mother nymph, and called by heaven's
command."

Thus, walking on, he spoke, and shewed the gate,
Since called Carmental by the Roman state;
Where stood an altar, sacred to the name
Of old Carmenta, the prophetic dame,
Who to her son foretold the Ænean race,
Sublime in fame, and Rome's imperial place ;-
Then shews the forests, which, in after-times,
Fierce Romulus, for perpetrated crimes,
A sacred refuge made;-with this, the shrine
Where Pan below the rock had rites divine;-
Then tells of Argus' death, his murdered guest,
Whose grave and tomb his innocence attest.
Thence, to the steep Tarpeian rock he leads-
Now roofed with gold, then thatched with homely
reeds.

A reverent fear (such superstition reigns

Among the rude) even then possessed the swains. Some god, they knew-what god, they could not tell

Did there amidst the sacred horror dwell.

The Arcadians thought him Jove; and said they saw
The mighty Thunderer with majestic awe,
Who shook his shield, and dealt his bolts around,
And scattered tempests on the teeming ground.
Then saw two heaps of ruins, (once they stood
Two stately towns, on either side the flood,)
Saturnia's and Janiculum's remains;

And either place the founder's name retains.
Discoursing thus together, they resort
Where poor Evander kept his country court.

They viewed the ground of Rome's litigious hall;
(Once oxen lowed, where now the lawyers bawl,)
Then, stooping, through the narrow gate they pressed,
When thus the king bespoke his Trojan guest:-
"Mean as it is, this palace, and this door,
Received Alcides, then a conqueror.
Dare to be poor; accept our homely food,
Which feasted him, and emulate a god."
Then underneath a lowly roof he led
The weary prince, and laid him on a bed;
The stuffing leaves with hides of bears o'erspread.
Now night had shed her silver dews around,
And with her sable wings embraced the ground,
When love's fair goddess, anxious for her son,
(New tumults rising, and new wars begun,)
Couched with her husband in his golden bed,
With these alluring words invokes his aid-
And, that her pleasing speech his mind may move,
Inspires each accent with the charms of love::
"While cruel fate conspired with Grecian powers,
To level with the ground the Trojan towers,
I asked not aid the unhappy to restore,
Nor did the succour of thy skill implore;
Nor urged the labours of my lord in vain,
A sinking empire longer to sustain,

Though much I owed to Priam's house, and more
The danger of Æneas did deplore.

But now, by Jove's command, and fate's decree,
His race is doomed to reign in Italy;
With humble suit I beg thy needful art,
O still propitious power, that rul'st my heart!
A mother kneels a suppliant for her son.
By Thetis and Aurora thou wert won
To forge impenetrable shields, and grace
With fated arms a less illustrious race.
Behold, what haughty nations are combined
Against the reliques of the Phrygian kind,

5

With fire and sword my people to destroy,
And conquer Venus twice, in conquering Troy."
She said; and strait her arms, of snowy hue,
About her unresolving husband threw.
Her soft embraces soon infuse desire;

His bones and marrow sudden warmth inspire;
And all the godhead feels the wonted fire.
Not half so swift the rattling thunder flies,
Or forky lightnings flash along the skies.
The goddess, proud of her successful wiles,
And conscious of her form, in secret smiles.
Then thus the power, obnoxious to her charms,
Panting, and half dissolving in her arms:-
"Why seek you reasons for a cause so just,
Or your own beauties or my love distrust?
Long since, had you required my helpful hand,
The artificer and art you might command,
To labour arms for Troy: nor Jove, nor Fate,
Confined their empire to so short a date.
And, if you now desire new wars to wage,
My skill I promise, and my pains engage.
Whatever melting metals can conspire,
Or breathing bellows, or the forming fire,
Is freely yours: your anxious fears remove,
And think no task is difficult to love."
Trembling he spoke; and, eager of her charms,
He snatched the willing goddess to his arms;
Till, in her lap infused, he lay possessed
Of full desire, and sunk to pleasing rest.
Now when the night her middle race had rode,
And his first slumber had refreshed the god-
The time when early housewives leave the bed;
When living embers on the hearth they spread,
Supply the lamp, and call the maids to rise;-
With yawning mouths, and with half-opened eyes,
They ply the distaff by the winking light,
And to their daily labour add the night:

1

Thus frugally they earn their children's bread,
And uncorrupted keep their nuptial bed—
Not less concerned, nor at a later hour,
Rose from his downy couch the forging power.
Sacred to Vulcan's name, an isle there lay,
Betwixt Sicilia's coasts and Lipare,

Raised high on smoking rocks: and, deep below,
In hollow caves the fires of Etna glow.
The Cyclops here their heavy hammers deal;
Loud strokes, and hissings of tormented steel,
Are heard around; the boiling waters roar,
And smoky flames through fuming tunnels soar.
Hither the father of the fire, by night,

Through the brown air precipitates his flight.
On their eternal anvils here he found

The brethren beating, and the blows go round:
A load of pointless thunder now there lies
Before their hands, to ripen for the skies:
These darts, for angry Jove, they daily cast-
Consumed on mortals with prodigious waste.
Three rays of writhen rain, of fire three more,
Of winged southern winds and cloudy store
As many parts, the dreadful mixture frame;
And fears are added, and avenging flame.
Inferior ministers, for Mars, repair

His broken axle-trees, and blunted war,
And send him forth again with furbished arms,
To wake the lazy war, with trumpets' loud alarms.
The rest refresh the scaly snakes, that fold
The shield of Pallas, and renew their gold.
Full on the crest the Gorgon's head they place,
With eyes that roll in death, and with distorted face.
My sons!" said Vulcan, "set your tasks aside;
Your strength and master-skill must now be tried.
Arms for a hero forge-arms that require
Your force, your speed, and all your forming fire."

66

VOL. XV.