Settle on diverse flowery things, and round the lilies white
Go streaming, so the fields were filled with mighty murmuring.”
Hypercriticism might here point out as a blemish the use of the same word “murmuring” to express the different sounds indicated in the Latin by the words sonantia and murmure; these are just the delicacies to be looked for in Virgil and not to be overlooked by his translator. Moreover, the line,
“A secret grove, in thicket fair, with murmuring of the trees,”
asks considerable good-will and knowledge of the Latin to make it sound quite reasonable, and “diverse flowery things” we have some private doubts about. But “hovered” is certainly a better equivalent for “volabant” than “crowded,” which gives no hint of the shadowy, unsubstantial nature of these dwellers in the realms of Dis—animæ, quibus altera fato corpora debentur:
“Là, les peuples futurs sont des ombres légères,”
as Delille puts it by an anticipative paraphrase. Here Mr. Cranch may meet his antagonists on somewhat better terms, though still we seem to miss in his lines the poetical flavor, which he rarely catches throughout:
“Meanwhile, Æneas in a valley deep
Sees a secluded grove, with rustling leaves
And branches; there the river Lethe glides