“ARMS AND THE MAN I SING, THE FIRST WHO BORE”
The following version of the first few lines of the Æneid were copied by Professor Reed of Philadelphia, with Mrs. Wordsworth’s permission, during a visit to Rydal Mount in 1854, four years after the poet’s death. Mrs. Reed kindly sent them to me.—Ed.
Arms and the Man I sing, the first who bore
His course to Latium from the Trojan shore,
A fugitive of fate. Long time was he
By powers celestial tossed on land and sea
Thro’ wrathful Juno’s far-famed enmity;
Much too from war endured till new abodes
He planted, and in Latium fixed his Gods,
Whence flows the Latin people, whence have come