He spake, and sought the threshold, weeping sore, Where by dead Pallas watched with pious care Acoetes; once Evander's arms he bore, His squire; since then, with auspices less fair, The trusted guardian of his dear-loved heir.
A crowd of sorrowing menials stand around, And Troy's sad matrons, with their streaming hair.
These, when AEneas at the door is found, Shriek out, and beat their breasts, and bitter wails resound.
VI.

He marked the pillowed head, the snow-white face, The smooth breast, gaping with the wound, and cried In anguish, while the tears burst forth apace, "Poor boy; hath Fortune, in her hour of pride, To me thy triumph and return denied?
Not such my promise to thy sire; not so My pledge to him, who, ere I left his side In quest of empire, clasped me, boding woe, And warned the race was fierce, and terrible the foe.
VII.

"He haply now, by empty hope betrayed, With prayer and presents doth the gods constrain.
We to the dead, whose debt to Heaven is paid, The rites of mourners render, but in vain.
Unhappy! doomed to see thy darling slain.
Is this the triumph?
this the promise sworn?
This the return?
Yet never thine the pain A coward's flight, a coward's scars to mourn; Not thine to long for death, thy loved one saved with scorn.
VIII.

"Ah, weep, Ausonia! thou hast lost to-day Thy champion.

Weep, Iulus; he is ta'en, Thy heart's delight, the bulwark of the fray!" Thus he with tears, and bids them lift the slain.
A thousand men, the choicest of his train, He sends as mourners, with the corpse to go, And stand between the parent and his pain, A scanty solace for so huge a woe, But such as pity claims, and piety doth owe.
IX.