ght new-born was the love
Diana owned, nor sudden-sweet the soul in her did move:
When Metabus, by hatred driven, and his o'erweening pride,
Fled from Privernum's ancient town, his fathers' country-side, 540
Companion of his exile there, amid the weapon-game,
A babe he had with him, whom he called from her mother's name
Casmilla, but a little changed, and now Camilla grown.
He, bearing her upon his breast, the woody ridges lone
Went seeking, while on every side the sword-edge was about,
And all around were scouring wide the weaponed Volscian rout.
But big lay Amasenus now athwart his very road,
Foaming bank-high, such mighty rain from out of heaven had flowed.
There, as he dight him to swim o'er, love of his babe, and fear
For burden borne so well-beloved, his footsteps back did bear. 550
At last, as all things o'er he turned, this sudden rede he took:
The huge spear that in mighty hand by hap the warrior shook,
A close-knit shaft of seasoned oak with many a knot therein,
Thereto did he his daughter bind, wrapped in the cork-tree's skin,
And to the middle of the beam he tied her craftily;
Then, shaking it in mighty hand, thus spoke unto the sky:
"O kind, O dweller in the woods, Latonian Virgin fair,
A father giveth thee a maid, who holds thine arms in air
As from the foe she flees to thee: O Goddess, take thine own,
That now upon the doubtful winds by this mine arm is thrown!" 560
He spake, and from his drawn-back arm cast forth the brandished wood;
Sounded the waves; Camilla flew across the hurrying flood,
A lorn thing bound to whistling shaft, and o'er the river won.
But Metabus, with all the band of chasers pressing on,
Unto the river gives himself, and reaches maid and spear,
And, conquering, from the grassy bank Diana's gift doth tear.
To roof and wall there took him thence no city of the land,
Nay, he himself, a wild-wood thing, to none had given the hand;
Upon the shepherd's lonely hills his life thenceforth he led;
His daughter mid the forest-brake, and wild deers' thicket-stead, 570
He nourished on the milk that flowed from herd-mare's untamed breast,
And to the maiden's tender lips the wild thing's udder pressed;
Then from the first of days when she might go upon her feet,
The heft of heavy sharpened dart her hand must learn to meet,
And