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Nor land nor star has made us stray
From our determined line of way:
Of steady purpose one and all
We flock beneath your city wall,
Driven from an empire, greater none
Within the circuit of the sun.
Jove is our sire: to Jove's high race
We, Dardans born, our lineage trace:
Jove's seed, the monarch we obey,
Æneas, sends us here to-day.
How fierce a storm from Argos sent
On Ida's plains its fury spent,
How Fate in dire collision hurled
The eastern and the western world,
E'en he has heard, whom earth's last verge
Just separates from the circling surge,
And he who, to his kind unknown,
Dwells midmost 'neath the torrid zone.
Swept by that deluge o'er the foam
For our lorn gods we ask a home:
A belt of sand is all we crave,
And man's free birthright, air and wave.
We shall not shame your Latin crown,
Nor light shall be your own renown,
Nor time obliterate the debt,
Nor Italy the hour regret
When Troy with outstretched arms she met.
I swear it by Æneas' fate,
By that right hand which makes him great,
In peace and war approved alike
A friend to aid, a foe to strike,
Full oft have mighty nations—nay,
Disdain not that unsought we pray,
Nor deem that wreaths and lowly speech
The grandeur of our name impeach—
Full oft with zeal and earnest prayers

Have nations wooed us to be theirs;