en,
Inly revolving many a dark event.
Trusty Achates at his side is seen,
Moody alike, each measured step between
In musing converse framing phantasies,
What lifeless comrade could the priestess mean?
Whom to be buried? When before their eyes,
Stretched on the barren beach the dead Misenus lies,

XXIV. Dead with dishonour, in unseemly plight,
Misenus, son of AEolus, whom beside
None better knew with brazen blast to light
The flames of war, and wake the warrior's pride.
Once Hector's co-mate, proud at Hector's side
To wind the clarion and the sword to wield.
When, stricken by Achilles, Hector died,
AEneas then he followed to the field,
Loth to a meaner lord his fealty to yield.

XXV. Now while a challenge to the gods he blew,
And made the waves his hollow shell resound,
Him Triton, jealous--if the tale be true--
Caught unaware, and in the surges drowned
Among the rocks.--There now the corpse they found.
Loud groaned AEneas, and a mournful cry
Rose from the Trojans, as they gazed around.
Then, filled with tears, the Sibyl's task they ply,
And rear a wood-built pile and altar to the sky.

XXVI. Into a grove of aged trees they go,
The wild-beasts' lair. The holm-oak rings amain,
Smit with the axe, the pitchy pine falls low,
Sharp wedges cleave the beechen core in twain,
The mountain ash comes rolling to the plain.
Foremost himself, accoutred as the rest,
AEneas cheered them, toiling with his train;
Then, musing sadly, and with pensive breast,
Gazed on the boundless grove, and thus his prayer addressed:

XXVII. "O in this grove could I behold the tree
With golden bough; since true, alas, too true,
Misenus, hath the priestess sung of thee!"
He spake, when, lighting on the sward, down flew
Two doves. With joy his mother's birds he knew,
"Lead on, blest guides, along the air," he prayed,
"If way there be, the precious bough to view,
Whose golden leaves the teeming soil o'ershade;
O mother, solve my doubts, nor stint the needed aid."

XXVIII. So saying, he stays his footsteps, fain to heed
What signs they give, and whitherward their flight.
Awhile they fly, awhile they stop to feed,
Then, fluttering, keep within the range of sight,
Till, coming where Avernus, dark as night,
Gapes, with rank vapours from its depths uprolled,
Aloft they soar, and through t