Men flee the spot Nor dare to worship near: and e'en the priest Or when bright Phoebus holds the height, or when Dark night controls the heavens, in anxious dread Draws near the grove and fears to find its lord.
Spared in the former war, still dense it rose Where all the hills were bare, and Caesar now Its fall commanded.

But the brawny arms Which swayed the axes trembled, and the men, Awed by the sacred grove's dark majesty, Held back the blow they thought would be returned.
This Caesar saw, and swift within his grasp Uprose a ponderous axe, which downward fell Cleaving a mighty oak that towered to heaven, While thus he spake: "Henceforth let no man dread To fell this forest: all the crime is mine.
This be your creed." He spake, and all obeyed, For Caesar's ire weighed down the wrath of Heaven.
Yet ceased they not to fear.

Then first the oak, Dodona's ancient boast; the knotty holm; The cypress, witness of patrician grief, The buoyant alder, laid their foliage low Admitting day; though scarcely through the stems Their fall found passage.

At the sight the Gauls Grieved; but the garrison within the walls Rejoiced: for thus shall men insult the gods And find no punishment?
Yet fortune oft Protects the guilty; on the poor alone The gods can vent their ire.

Enough hewn down, They seize the country wagons; and the hind, His oxen gone which else had drawn the plough, Mourns for his harvest.
But the eager chief Impatient of the combat by the walls Carries the warfare to the furthest west.
Meanwhile a giant mound, on star-shaped wheels Concealed, they fashion, crowned with double towers High as the battlements, by cause unseen Slow creeping onwards; while amazed the foe, Beheld, and thought some subterranean gust Had burst the caverns of the earth and forced The nodding pile aloft, and wondered sore Their walls should stand unshaken.