Studies in the Poetry of Italy, Part I. Roman

John Stuart Mill · en
And are you come at last? Has love fulfilled a father's hopes and
    surmounted the perils of the way? Is it mine to look on your face,
    my son, and listen and reply as we talked of old? Yes; I was even
    thinking so in my own mind. I was reckoning that it would be,
    counting over the days. Nor has my longing played me false. Oh,
    the lands and the mighty seas from which you have come to my
    presence! the dangers, my son, that have tossed and smitten you!
    Oh, how I have feared lest you should come to harm in that realm
    of Libya!

                                                     Conington.

Then follows a revelation of the mysteries of transmigration of souls,
the nature of soul essence, its purgation after years of contact with
its old body, and its ages of preparation for another mortal habitation.

Anchises now calls his son's attention to his own posterity, standing in
majestic review before him--noble shades, some of whom are destined to
go to the upper world at once, and some to wait long centuries in the
land of preëxistent souls. The mighty host of Roman worthies are
marshaled here, who, as yet unknown, are to make the name of Rome known
and feared or honored to the farthest bounds of earth. Here stalk the
shadowy forms of kings, consuls, generals, and statesmen, who on earth
shall be Romulus, Numa, and Tarquin; Brutus, Decius, Camillus, Cato, and
the Gracchi; the Scipios, the Fabii; Cæsar and Pompey, and he whose brow
shall be first to wear the imperial crown as ruler of the
world--Augustus Cæsar.

And now Æneas, fortified for any hardships upon earth by these glorious
visions of his posterity, turns his face back to the upper world.

    There are two gates of Sleep: the one, as story tells, of horn,
    supplying a ready exit for true spirits; the other gleaming with
    the polish of dazzling ivory, but through it the powers below send
    false dreams to the world above. Thither Anchises, talking thus,
    conducts his son and the Sibyl, and dismisses them by the gate of
    ivory. Æneas traces his way to the fleet, and returns to his
    comrades; then sails along the shore for Caieta's haven. The
    anchor is cast from the prow; the keels are ranged on the beach.

                                                     Conington.

The Trojans sail up the coast, touch once more upon the land, skirt wide
past Circe's realm of dreadful magic, and then they come to where a
wide-mouthed river pours out into the sea.