} You are his favourite; you alone can find The dark recesses of his inmost mind: In all his trusted secrets you have part, And know the soft approaches to his heart. Haste then, and humbly seek my haughty foe; Tell him, I did not with the Grecians go, Nor did my fleet against his friends employ, Nor swore the ruin of unhappy Troy, Nor moved with hands prophane his father's dust: Why should he then reject a suit so just? Whom does he shun? and whither would he fly? Can he this last, this only prayer deny? Let him at least his dangerous flight delay, Wait better winds, and hope a calmer sea. The nuptials he disclaims, I urge no more: Let him pursue the promised Latian shore. A short delay is all I ask him now-- A pause of grief, an interval from woe, Till my soft soul be tempered to sustain Accustomed sorrows, and inured to pain. If you in pity grant this one request, My death shall glut the hatred of his breast." This mournful message pious Anna bears, And seconds, with her own, her sister's tears: But all her arts are still employed in vain; Again she comes, and is refused again. His hardened heart nor prayers nor threatenings move; Fate, and the god, had stopped his ears to love. As, when the winds their airy quarrel try, Jostling from every quarter of the sky, This way and that the mountain oak they bend, His boughs they shatter, and his branches rend; With leaves and falling mast they spread the ground; The hollow valleys echo to the sound: Unmoved, the royal plant their fury mocks, Or, shaken, clings more closely to the rocks: Far as he shoots his towering head on high, So deep in earth his fixed foundations lie.-- No less a storm the Trojan hero bears; } Thick messages and loud complaints he hears, } And bandied words, still beating on his ears. } Sighs, groans, and tears, proclaim his inward pains; But the firm purpose of his heart remains. The wretched queen, pursued by cruel Fate, Begins at length the light of heaven to hate, And loaths to live. Then dire portents she sees, To hasten on the death her soul decrees-- Strange to relate! for when, before the shrine, She pours in sacrifice the purple wine, The purple wine is turned to putrid blood, And the white offered milk converts to mud. This dire presage, to her alone revealed, From all, and even her sister, she concealed. A marble temple stood within the grove, Sacred to death, and to her murdered love; That honoured chapel she had hung around With snowy fleeces, and with garlands crowned: Oft, when she visited this lonely dome, Strange voices issued from her husband's tomb: She thought she heard him summon her away, Invite her to his grave, and chide her stay. Hourly 'tis heard, when with a boding note The solitary screech-owl strains her throat,