The foe has gain'd the walls: and, stooping low,
Troy humbles in the dust her towery brow.
Enough is done: thy patriot work is o'er :
Priam and Troy can ask of thee no more.
If Ilion by a mortal's force could stand,
Still had she stood by this protecting hand.
To thee she now her country gods commends:
Them, as companions of thine exile, sends,
With them range seas, and, all thy toils fulfill'd,
Found the great walls which Heaven by thee will
build.'

SYMMONS.

THE DEATH OF PRIAM.

FROM THE LATIN OF VIRGIL.

HAPLY, you now may ask the monarch's fate,
When he beheld his captured city's state,

And his own palace storm'd; with arms, disused
For many a year, his age-worn limbs he bruised.
Then, with an idle falchion girt, the sire
Went feebly, not to combat but expire.

Where the mid dome unfolded to the sky,

A spacious altar rear'd its sanctity.

O'er it, and o'er the gods that held the place,
An ancient laurel threw its wide embrace.
Here Hecuba, in vain imploring aid,

Sat with her daughters in the hallow'd shade.
Like doves collected in a flock, when driven
By a black storm that rides the clouds of heaven,
They cower'd around the shrine; and fondly press'd
The gods' cold statues to the beating breast.
But when the wretched queen beheld her lord,
Like a young warrior, arm'd with spear and sword,

'Ah! what dire impulse this?' she cried, 'Ah! why
These arms? and whither haste you thus to die?
No! my lost Consort! this disastrous hour
Asks other arms, and more availing power.
Even my own Hector, were my Hector here,
Vainly would now exert his deathful spear.
Then hither come: this shrine will guard us all:
Here be our safety one; or one our fall.'

She spoke; and gently, as her words entreat,
Placed the lorn senior on the hallow'd seat.
But, lo! escaped from Pyrrhus' slaughtering arm,
Polites, Priam's son, in wild alarm

Flies, wounded, through the storm of darts and foes;
Through the wide halls, and galleries' long rows.
Him Pyrrhus follows with his lifted death,
Ardent to strike, and fans him with his breath.
Now, now the spear just touches on its prey:
When, forcing to his sire his bleeding way,
The hapless boy, extended on the floor,
Pours out his spirit in a flood of gore.

Then, though within the pale of death he stood,
Priam restrain'd not his impatient blood.
'Wretch!' he exclaim'd,' the gods for this offence,
If gods be just, will give the recompense.
Yes! they will strike the hand that thus could stain
A father's vision with his offspring slain.
Achilles, slander'd by thy filial claim,
Respected in his fòe a father's name.

He, to the rights of pleading nature true,
Felt what to suppliant wretchedness was due :
Gave the son's body to the funeral fire;
And safely to his throne dismiss'd the sire.'

Thus spake the reverend king; then feebly threw His lance, which fluttering and unwounding flew.

Faintly upon the impassive brass it rung;
Nor on the surface of the buckler hung.

To him thus Pyrrhus :-'Then thyself shalt go, And bear these tidings to my sire below. Tell him what Neoptolemus has done; And wound his ear with his degenerate son. Now die!' Thus speaking, to the shrine he tore The father, faltering through the son's warm gore. By the white locks of age his left hand held The panting victim, while his right impell'd His flaming blade, that with the force impress'd Plunged, and was lost within the monarch's breast.

SYMMONS.

FAME.

FROM THE LATIN OF VIRGIL.

BUT Fame, alarm'd, o'er Libya's cities flies : Fame, the most fleet of mischief's progenies: Who gathers speed from every passing hour; Grows as she moves, and travels into power. Timid and small at first, at length she shrouds, While treading on the ground, her forehead in the Offended at the gods, great parent Earth, [clouds. 'Tis said, in vengeance gave the monster birth, Of all her giant family the last;

A swift-wing'd portent, foul, deform'd, and vast. Beneath each numerous plume, that lifts her flight, An active eye extends her scope of sight.

As many ears and mouths and tongues she moves, To catch and spread the rumours as she roves. Midway 'twixt heaven and earth, through night she flies

Clanging, nor bathes in dewy sleep her eyes.

By day she keeps on watch, and takes her stand On some high roof or tower of wide command; And thence, alike for truth or falsehood loud, She shakes the city and distracts the crowd.

SYMMONS.

THE DEATH OF DIDO.

FROM THE LATIN OF VIRGIL.

AND now, with cloven ash and pine built high,
In the court's inner space, beneath the sky,
The pyre of fate, as gloomily it stands, [bands;
The queen, encircling, wreathes with flowery
And, thoughtful of the event her soul decreed,
Crowns it with leaves devoted to the dead;
And places all the relics on its head. [plays;
There plants the sword, the conscious bed dis-
And on the bed the hero's image lays.

Altars are raised around: the priestess there,
With raving act and wildly streaming hair,
Thundering, thrice summons from their dread
Orcus and Chaos, and the hundred gods, [abodes
And threefold Hecate,-Diana trine,

In hell, on earth, in heaven, of power divine:
Strews drops, pretended from the Avernian well;
And herbs, whose veins with dusky poisons swell;
Fed with black dews from night's disastrous noon,
With brazen sickles reap'd beneath the moon;
And then, to give the maddening power to movė,
Robs the foal's forehead of its mother's love.
The queen before the solemn altars bends:
The salted cakes her pious hand extends.
One foot was bare, and zoneless was her vest:
Her dying lips the gods and stars attest:

The stars and gods that, conscious of her state,
Look'd idly on, nor would avert her fate:
And if there be upon the thrones above
Some Powers, who visit for the wrongs of love; .
To these, whose pity woes like hers can feel,
Her prayers for justice and revenge appeal.

'Twas night; and slumber's soft and balmy hand
Threw healing influence o'er the weary land.
The woods repose: the lull'd waves murmur low:"
In their mid course the stars serenely glow:
Hush'd are the fields: the tenants of the brake,
The mead, the forest, and the limpid lake,
Beasts and gay-cinctured birds, in sleep's delight
Forget their labours, and enjoy the night.
Not so the unhappy queen: with transient rest
Night cannot seal her eyes, or calm her breast.
Contending cares distract her: love returns
To war with anger, and the conflict burns.
'What shall I do? ah! what is now the part
My fortunes prompt?' she questions thus her heart:
Shall I my former suitors try to move?

Beg, where I would not give, the boon of love?
Court Libyan nuptials with submitting pride?
And, scorning oft, now sue-and be denied?
Or shall I go, and seek the Trojan bands,
A suppliant, crouching for their last commands?
Yes!-truly, those I succour'd will be kind!
Already have they shown their grateful mind!
But, grant my soul could stoop thus meanly low,
Would their proud ships receive me as I bow?
Ah wretch! yet know'st thou not that falsehood

runs,

From false Laomedon, through all his sons?
Then-shall I singly go, prepared to meet
The taunts and pity of the shouting fleet?