THE just man's single-purposed mind Not furious mobs that prompt to ill May move, nor kings' frowns shake his will Which is as rock; not warrior winds That keep the seas in wild unrest; Nor bolt by Jove's own finger hurled: The fragments of a shivered world Would crash round him still self-possest. Love's wandering son reached, thus endowed, The fiery bastions of the skies; Thus Pollux; with them Caesar lies Beside his nectar, radiant-browed. Honoured for this, by tigers drawn Rode Bacchus, reining necks before Untamed; for this War's horses bore Quirinus up from Acheron. To the pleased gods had Juno said In conclave: "Troy is in the dust; Troy, by a judge accursed, unjust, And that strange woman prostrated. "The day Laomedon ignored His god-pledged word, resigned to me And Pallas ever pure, was she, Her people, and their traitor lord. "Now the Greek woman's guilty guest Dazzles no more: Priam's perjured sons Find not against the mighty ones Of Greece a shield in Hector's breast: "And, long drawn out by private jars, The war sleeps. Lo! my wrath is o'er: And him the Trojan vestal bore (Sprung of that hated line) to Mars, "To Mars restore I. His be rest In halls of light: by him be drained The nectar-bowl, his place obtained In the calm companies of the blest. "While betwixt Rome and Ilion raves A length of ocean, where they will Rise empires for the exiles still: While Paris's and Priam's graves "Are trod by kine, and she-wolves breed Securely there, unharmed shall stand Rome's lustrous Capitol, her hand Curb with proud laws the trampled Mede. "Wide-feared, to far-off climes be borne Her story; where the central main Europe and Libya parts in twain, Where full Nile laves a land of corn: "The buried secret of the mine, (Best left there) let her dare to spurn, Nor unto man's base uses turn, Profane hands laying on things divine. "Earth's utmost end, where'er it be, Let her hosts reach; careering proud O'er lands where watery rain and cloud, Or where wild suns hold revelry. "But, to the warriors of Rome, Tied by this law, such fates are willed; That they seek never to rebuild, Too fond, too bold, their grandsires' home. "With darkest omens, deadliest strife, Shall Troy, raised up again, repeat Her history; I the victor-fleet Shall lead, Jove's sister and his wife. "Thrice let Apollo rear the wall Of brass; and thrice my Greeks shall hew The fabric down: thrice matrons rue In chains their sons', their husbands' fall." Ill my light lyre such notes beseem. Stay, Muse; nor, wayward still, rehearse Sayings of Gods in meagre verse That may but mar a mighty theme. |