Parch

Toward the altar sober-pac'd I went, Repressing haste as too unholy there; And, coming nearer, saw beside the shrine One ministering; and there arose a flame When in mid-day the sickening east-wind Shifts sudden to the south, the small warm rain Melts out the frozen incense from all flowers, And fills the air with so much pleasant health That even the dying man forgets his shroud;— Even so that lofty sacrificial fire, Sending forth Maian incense, spread around Forgetfulness of everything but bliss, And clouded all the altar with soft smoke; From whose white fragrant curtains thus I heard Language pronounc'd: "If thou canst not ascend These steps, die on that marble where thou art. Thy flesh, near cousin to the common dust, Will parch for lack of nutriment; thy bones Will wither in few years, and vanish so That not the quickest eye could find a grain Of what thou now art on that pavement cold. The sands of thy short life are spent this hour, And no hand in the universe can turn Thy hourglass, if these gummed leaves be burnt Ere thou canst mount up these immortal steps."

"We leave the Delian ports, and put to sea. With eager haste a rising town I frame, Which from the Trojan Pergamus I name: The name itself was grateful; I exhort To found their houses, and erect a fort. Our ships are haul'd upon the yellow strand; The youth begin to till the labour'd land; And I myself new marriages promote, Give laws, and dwellings I divide by lot; When rising vapours choke the wholesome air, And blasts of noisome winds corrupt the year; The trees devouring caterpillars burn; Parch'd was the grass, and blighted was the corn: Nor 'scape the beasts; for Sirius, from on high, With pestilential heat infects the sky: My men, some fall, the rest in fevers fry. Again my father bids me seek the shore Of sacred Delos, and the god implore, To learn what end of woes we might expect, And to what clime our weary course direct. "

Not the Pilot Not the pilot has charged himself to bring his ship into port, though beaten back and many times baffled; Not the pathfinder penetrating inland weary and long, By deserts parch'd, snows chill'd, rivers wet, perseveres till he reaches his destination, More than I have charged myself, heeded or unheeded, to compose a march for these States, For a battle-call, rousing to arms if need be, years, centuries hence.

For eight slow-circling years, by tempests toss'd, From Cypress to the far Phoenician coast (Sidon the capital), I stretch'd my toil Through regions fatten'd with the flows of Nile. Next Aethiopia's utmost bound explore, And the parch'd borders of the Arabian shore; Then warp my voyage on the southern gales, O'er the warm Lybian wave to spread my sails; That happy clime, where each revolving year The teeming ewes a triple offspring bear; And two fair crescents of translucent horn The brows of all their young increase adorn: The shepherd swains, with sure abundance blest, On the fat flock and rural dainties feast; Nor want of herbage makes the dairy fail, But every season fills the foaming pail.

So spake our mother Eve, and Adam heard Well pleased, but answered not; for now too nigh The Archangel stood, and from the other hill To their fixed station, all in bright array, The Cherubim descended; on the ground Gliding meteorous, as evening mist Risen from a river o'er the marish glides, And gathers ground fast at the labourer's heel Homeward returning. High in front advanced, The brandished sword of God before them blazed, Fierce as a comet; which with torrid heat, And vapour as the Libyan air adust, Began to parch that temperate clime; whereat In either hand the hastening angel caught Our lingering parents, and to the eastern gate Led them direct, and down the cliff as fast To the subjected plain; then disappeared.