Smile, Phoebus, on the youthful priest Who seeks thy shrine to-day! With lyre and song attend our feast, And with imperious finger play Thy loudly thrilling chords to anthems high! Come, with temples laurel-bound, O'er thine own thrice-hallowed ground, Where incense from our altars meets the sky! Come radiant and fair, In golden garb and glorious, clustering hair, The famous guise in which thou sang'st so well Of victor Jove, when Saturn's kingdom fell! The far-off future all is thine! Thy hallowed augurs can divine Whate'er dark song the birds of omen sing; Of augury thou art the king, And thy wise haruspex finds meaning fit For what the gods have in the victims writ. The hoary Sibyl taught of thee Never sings of Rome untrue, Chanting forth in measures due Her mysterious prophecy. Once she bade Aeneas look In her all-revealing book, What time from Trojan shore His father and his fallen gods he bore. Doubtful and dark to him was Rome's bright name, While yet his mournful eyes Saw Ilium dying and her gods in flame. Not yet beneath the skies Had Romulus upreared the weight Of our Eternal City's wall, Denied to Remus by unequal fate. Then lowly cabins small Possessed the seat of Capitolian Jove; And, over Palatine, the rustics drove Their herds afield, where Pan's similitude Dripped down with milk beneath an ilex tall, And Pales' image rude Hewn out by pruning-hook, for worship stood. The shepherd hung upon the bough His babbling pipes in payment of a vow,-- The pipe of reeds in lessening order placed, Knit well with wax from longest unto last. Where proud Velabrum lies, A little skiff across the shallows plies; And oft, to meet her shepherd lover, The village lass is ferried over For a woodland holiday: At night returning o'er the watery way, She brings a tribute from the fruitful farms-- A cheese, or white lamb, carried in her arms. _The Sibyl_ "High-souled Aeneas, brother of light-winged Love, "Thy pilgrim ships Troy's fallen worship bear. "To thee the Latin lands are given of Jove, "And thy far-wandering gods are welcome there. "Thou thyself shalt have a shrine "By Numicus' holy wave; "Be thou its genius strong to bless and save, "By power divine!