Where, from the storm, we common shelter sought! A dreadful howling echoed round the place; The mountain nymphs, thought I, my nuptials grace. I thought so then, but now too late I know The furies yelled my funerals from below. O chastity and violated fame, Exact your dues to my dead husband's name! By death redeem my reputation lost, And to his arms restore my guilty ghost! Close by my palace, in a gloomy grove, Is raised a chapel to my murdered love; There, wreathed with boughs and wool, his statue stands, The pious monument of artful hands. Last night, methought, he called me from the dome, And thrice, with hollow voice, cried, Dido, come!-- She comes; thy wife thy lawful summons hears, But comes more slowly, clogged with conscious fears. Forgive the wrong I offered to thy bed; Strong were his charms, who my weak faith misled. His goddess mother, and his aged sire Borne on his back, did to my fall conspire. Oh! such he was, and is, that, were he true, Without a blush I might his love pursue; But cruel stars my birth-day did attend, And, as my fortune opened, it must end. My plighted lord was at the altar slain, Whose wealth was made my bloody brother's gain; Friendless, and followed by the murderer's hate, To foreign countries I removed my fate; And here, a suppliant, from the natives' hands I bought the ground on which my city stands, With all the coast that stretches to the sea, E'en to the friendly port that sheltered thee; Then raised these walls, which mount into the air, At once my neighbours' wonder, and their fear. For now they arm; and round me leagues are made, My scarce established empire to invade. To man my new-built walls I must prepare, An helpless woman, and unskilled in war. Yet thousand rivals to my love pretend, And for my person would my crown defend; Whose jarring votes in one complaint agree, That each unjustly is disdained for thee. To proud Hyarbas give me up a prey, For that must follow, if thou goest away; Or to my husband's murderer leave my life, That to the husband he may add the wife. Go then, since no complaints can move thy mind; Go, perjured man, but leave thy gods behind. Touch not those gods, by whom thou art forsworn, Who will in impious hands no more be borne; Thy sacrilegious worship they disdain, And rather would the Grecian fires sustain. Perhaps my greatest shame is still to come, And part of thee lies hid within my womb; The babe unborn must perish by thy hate, And perish, guiltless, in his mother's fate. Some god, thou sayest, thy voyage does command; Would the same god had barred thee from my land! The same, I doubt not, thy departure steers, Who kept thee out at sea so many years; While thy long labours were a price so great,