ak,
If once we gain the land."
Therewith, as such a word he spake,
His fellows rise together hard on every shaven tree,
In mind to bear their ships befoamed up on the Latin lea, 300
Until their tynes are high and dry, and fast is every keel
Unhurt: save, Tarchon, thine alone, that winneth no such weal;
For on the shallows driven aground, on evil ridge unmeet,
She hangeth balanced a long while, and doth the waters beat;
Then, breaking, droppeth down her men amidmost of the waves,
Entangled in the wreck of oars, and floating thwarts and staves;
And in the back-draught of the seas their feet are caught withal.

No dull delay holds Turnus back; but fiercely doth he fall,
With all his host, on them of Troy, and meets them on the strand. 309
The war-horns sing. AEneas first breaks through the field-folk's band,
--Fair omen of the fight--and lays the Latin folk alow.
Thero he slays, most huge of men, whose own heart bade him go
Against AEneas: through the links of brass the sword doth fare,
And through the kirtle's scaly gold, and wastes the side laid bare.
Then Lichas smites he, ripped erewhile from out his mother dead,
And hallowed, Phoebus, unto thee, because his baby head
Had 'scaped the steel: nor far from thence he casteth down to die
Hard Cisseus, Gyas huge, who there beat down his company
With might of clubs; nought then availed that Herculean gear,
Nor their stark hands, nor yet their sire Melampus, though he were 320
Alcides' friend so long as he on earth wrought heavy toil.
Lo Pharo! while a deedless word he flingeth mid the broil,
The whirring of the javelin stays within his shouting mouth.
Thou, Cydon, following lucklessly thy new delight, the youth
Clytius, whose first of fallow down about his cheeks is spread
Art well-nigh felled by Dardan hand, and there hadst thou lain dead,
At peace from all the many loves wherein thy life would stray,
Had not thy brethren's serried band now thrust across the way
E'en Phorcus' seed: sevenfold of tale and sevenfold spears they wield:
But some thereof fly harmless back from helm-side and from shield, 330
The rest kind Venus turned aside, that grazing past they flew;
But therewithal AEneas spake unto Achates true:

"Reach me my shafts: not one in vain my right hand now shall speed