And soughs of wind sigh through the forest stirred.
The wave already scarce foregoes the hull
When homeward from the offing flies the gull,
With screams borne inland by the blast; and when
Sea-coots play round the margin of the fen;
The heron quits the marsh where she was bred
And soars upon a cloud far overhead.
[86]Following Keightley’s Commentary, which is the best we possess on Georg. i. 351-423.
[87]Aen. xii. 473. Mr. Mackail translates: “As when a black swallow flits through some rich lord’s spacious house, and circles in flight in the lofty halls, gathering her tiny food for sustenance to her twittering nestlings, and now swoops down the spacious colonnades, now round the wet ponds,” &c.
[88]Aen. ix. 564; xi. 721, 751; xii. 247.