LXXXI. "'Wilt thou not see, if yet thy sire survive,
Worn out with age, amid the war's alarms?
And if thy wife Creusa be alive,
And young Ascanius? for around thee swarms
The foe, and but for my protecting arms,
Fierce sword or flame had swept them all away.
Not oft-blamed Paris, nor the hateful charms
Of Helen; Heaven, unpitying Heaven to-day		721
Hath razed the Trojan towers and reft the Dardan sway.
LXXXII. "'Look now, for I will clear the mists that shroud
Thy mortal gaze, and from the visual ray
Purge the gross covering of this circling cloud.
Thou heed, and fear not, whatsoe'er I say,
Nor scorn thy mother's counsels to obey.
Here, where thou seest the riven piles o'erthrown,
Mixt dust and smoke, rock torn from rock away,
Great Neptune's trident shakes the bulwarks down,		730
And from its lowest base uproots the trembling town.

LXXXIII. "'Here, girt with steel, the foremost in the fight,
Fierce Juno stands, the Scæan gates before,
And, mad with fury and malignant spite,
Calls up her federate forces from the shore.
See, on the citadel, all grim with gore,
Red-robed, and with the [Gorgon shield] aglow,
Tritonian [Pallas] bids the conflict roar.
E'en Jove with strength reanimates the foe,		739
And stirs the powers of heaven to work the Dardan's woe.

LXXXIV. "'Haste, son, and fly; the fruitless toil give o'er.
I will not leave thee, but assist thy flight,
And set thee safely at thy father's door.'
She spake, and vanished in the gloom of night.
Dread shapes and forms terrific loomed in sight,
And hostile deities, whose faces frowned
Destruction. Then, amid the lurid light,
I see Troy sinking in the flames around,		748
And mighty [Neptune's walls] laid level with the ground.

LXXXV. "So, when an aged ash on mountain tall
Stout woodmen strive, with many a rival blow,
To rend from earth; awhile it threats to fall,
With quivering locks and nodding head; now slow
It sinks and, with a dying groan lies low,
And spreads its ruin on the mountain side.
Down from the citadel I haste below,
Through foe, through fire, the goddess for my guide.		757
Harmless the darts give way, the sloping flames divide.
LXXXVI. "But when Anchises' ancient home I gain,
My father,—he, whom first, with loving care,
I sought and, heedful of my mother, fain
In safety to the neighbouring hills would bear,
Disdains Troy's ashes to outlive and wear
His days in banishment: 'Fly ye, who may,
Whom age hath chilled not, nor the years impair.
For me, had Heaven decreed a longer day,		766
Heaven too had spared these walls, nor left my home a prey.
LXXXVII. "'Enough and more, to live when Ilion fell,
And once to see Troy captured. Leave me, pray,
And bid me, as a shrouded corpse, farewell.
For death—this hand will find for me the way,
Or foes who spoil will pity me and slay.
Light is the loss of sepulchre or pyre,
Loathed have I lived and useless, since the day
When man's great monarch and the God's dread sire		775
Breathed his avenging blast and scathed me with his fire.'