With gifts like these for aye to hold,
Rome's heart had e'en been overbold.
Ah! what a groan from Mars's plain
Shall o'er the city sound!
How wilt thou gaze on that long train,
Old Tiber, rolling to the main
Beside his new-raised mound!
No youth of Ilium's seed inspires
With hope as fair his Latian sires:
Nor Rome shall dandle on her knee
A nursling so adored as he.
O piety! O ancient faith!
O hand untamed in battle scathe!
No foe had lived before his sword,
Stemmed he on foot the war's red tide
Or with relentless rowel gored
His foaming charger's side.
Dear child of pity! shouldst thou burst
The dungeon-bars of Fate accurst,
Our own Marcellus thou!
Bring lilies here, in handfuls bring:
Their lustrous blooms I fain would fling:
Such honour to a grandson's shade
By grandsire hands may well be paid:
Yet O! it 'vails not now!"
He had died not long before, in his twentieth year, intensely lamented both by his family and the people.
The recital of the passage by the poet before his imperial audience had a more striking effect than even he himself could have expected. Octavia swooned away, and had to be removed by her attendants,—sending, however, magnificent presents afterwards to the poet for his eulogy on her dead son.[1]
- ↑ Virgil is said to have received from her what would amount,
