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Support the Monkey! Tell All your Friends and Teachers |
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Support the Monkey! Tell All your Friends and Teachers |
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Then old Evander, with a close embrace, Strain'd his departing friend; and tears o'erflow his face. "Would Heav'n," said he, "my strength and youth recall, Such as I was beneath Praeneste's wall; Then when I made the foremost foes retire, 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 His rapes and murthers 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 with peace and victory; If the lov'd boy shall bless his father's sight; If we shall meet again with more delight; 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. The horsemen march; the gates are open'd wide; Aeneas at their head, Achates by his side. Next these, the Trojan leaders rode along; Last follows in the rear th' Arcadian throng. Young Pallas shone conspicuous o'er the rest; Gilded his arms, embroider'd was his vest. 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, |
