Th' intended march: amid the fearful crowd,

Ths matrons beat their breasts, dissolve in tears,.

And double their devotion in their fears.

The war at hand appears with more affright,
And rises ev'ry moment to the sight.

735

Then old Evander, with a close embrace,

740

Strain'd his departing friend; and tears o'erflow his face. "Would heav'n (said he) my strength and youth

And set whole heaps of conquer'd shields on fire;

When Herilus in single fight I slew,

Whom with three lives Feronia did endue;

And thrice I sent him to the Stygian shore,

Till the last ebbing soul return'd no more

Such if I stood renew'd, not these alarms,
Nor death, should rend me from my Pallas' arms;
Nor proud Mezentius thus, unpunish'd, boast

750

His rapes and murders on the Tuscan coast.

Ye gods and mighty Jove! in pity bring
Relief, and hear a father and a king!
If fate and you reserve these eyes, to see
My son return'd with peace and victory :
If the lov'd boy shall bless his father's sight;
If we shall meet again with more delight;

755

760

Then draw my life in length; let me sustain,
In hopes of his embrace, the worst of pain.
But, if your hard decrees-which, O! I dread-
Have doom'd to death his undeserving head;
This, O! this very moment let me die,
While hopes and fears in equal balance lie;
While, yet possess'd of all his youthful charms,
I strain him close within these aged arms-
Before that fatal news my soul shall wound!"
He said, and swooning, sunk upon the ground.
His servants bore him off, and softly laid

His languish'd limbs upon his homely bed.

765

779

The horsemen march; the gates are open'd wide; Æneas at their head, Achates by his side. Next these the Trojan leaders rode along:

Last, follows in the rear th' Arcadian throng. 775 Young Pallas shone conspicuous o'er the rest; Gilded his arms, embroider'd was his vest.

730

So, from the seas, exerts his radiant head
The star, by whom the lights of heav'n are led;
Shakes from his rosy locks the pearly dews,
Dispels the darkness, and the day renews.
The trembling wives the walls and turrets crowd
And follow, with their eyes, the dusty cloud,
Which winds disperse by fits, and shew from far
The blaze of arms, and shields, and shining war. 785

The troops, drawn up in beautiful array,
O'er heathy plains pursue the ready way.
Repeated peals of shouts are heard around:
The neighing coursers answer to the sound,
And shake with horny hoofs the solid ground. 790
A greenwood shade, for long religion known,
Stands by the streams that wash the Tuscan town,
Incompass'd round with gloomy hills above,

Which add a holy horror to the grove.

The first inhabitants, of Grecian blood,

That sacred forest to Silvanus vow'd,

The guardian of their flocks and fields-and pay
Their due devotions on his annual day.

Not far from hence, along the river's side,

In tents secure, the Tuscan troops abide,

By Tarchon led. Now, from a rising ground,
Eneas cast his wond'ring eyes around,

And all the Tyrrhene army had in sight,

Stretch'd on the spacious plain from left to right.
Thither his warlike train the Trojan led,

Refresh'd his men, and weary'd horses fed.

795

800

805

Meantime the mother goddess, crown'd with charms, Breaks through the clouds, and brings the fated arms. Within a winding vale she finds her son,

On the cool river's banks, retir'd alone.

She shews her heav'nly form without disguise,

810