Sad with thoughts of Carthage, its Lady fair, Weary and worn with wanderings and care, Mourning his father still, Æneas lay Sleepless, when lo! visible as in day, Though up the heavens drove her car black Night, Anchises, lit with an unearthly light: “My Son,” he said, “here am I by Jove’s grace; He pities, late, the sorrows of our race, And has sent me to comfort and advise. Let a new Troy in Sicily arise, Peopled by many who would stay behind. With the young and bravest, sail thou, and find A realm in Latium; make its rude tribes feel The temper of their Trojan Master’s steel. But, first, thou to the Nether World descend, And traverse from the threshold to the end In search of me; not that I dwell in Dis, With the curst, but the pleasant fields of bliss. Thither, with, for thy guide, the Sibyl, come To learn thy sons’ deeds in their destined home. But past midnight; the horses of the Sun Pant to speed on their course;—I must be gone!” Full well were Jove’s commands he brought obeyed, And the foundations of the city laid— “Acesta”—as its lord, Acestes hailed; And, wept now by those it left, the fleet sailed.— For Italy sailed; there arrived; and moored Off Cumæ;— but with Pilot none on board. Whether marine God, jealous of a skill In seamanship like his, or, spite of will, Worn out with toil, he failed at last to keep His eyelids from the poppy dew of sleep; Who knows? but he woke, rudder in his hand, Drifting, shouts unheard, to an unknown strand.