I fear, relax'd with midnight dews,
The strings their former aid refuse."
With poison tipt, his arrow flies,
Deep in my tortur'd heart it lies:
Then loud the joyous Urchin laugh'd:—
"My bow can still impel the shaft:
'Tis firmly fix'd, thy sighs reveal it;
Say, courteous host, canst thou not feel it?"
THE EPISODE OF NISUS AND EURYALUS.[1]
A PARAPHRASE FROM THE "ÆNEID," LIB. 9.
Nisus, the guardian of the portal, stood,
Eager to gild his arms with hostile blood;
Well skill'd, in fight, the quivering lance to wield,
Or pour his arrows thro' th' embattled field:
From Ida torn, he left his sylvan cave,[2]
And sought a foreign home, a distant grave.
- ↑ [Lines 1–18 were first published in P. on V. Occasions, under the title of "Fragment of a Translation from the 9th Book of Virgil's Æneid."
- ↑
Him Ida sent, a hunter, now no more,
To combat foes, upon a foreign shore;
Near him, the loveliest of the Trojan band,
Did fair Euryalus, his comrade, stand;
Few are the seasons of his youthful life,
As yet a novice in the martial strife:
The Gods to him unwonted gifts impart,
A female's beauty, with a hero's heart.—[P. on V. Occasions.]
From Ida torn he left his native grove,
Through distant climes, and trackless seas to rove.—[Hours of Idleness.]
