free-verse39 lines

Verses From The Oldest Portfolio - First Verses - Phillips Academy, Andover, Mass., 1824 Or 1825

Translation From The Eneid, Book I.

The god looked out upon the troubled deep

Waked into tumult from its placid sleep;

The flame of anger kindles in his eye

As the wild waves ascend the lowering sky;

He lifts his head above their awful height

And to the distant fleet directs his sight,

Now borne aloft upon the billow's crest,

Struck by the bolt or by the winds oppressed,

And well he knew that Juno's vengeful ire

Frowned from those clouds and sparkled in that fire.

On rapid pinions as they whistled by

He calls swift Zephyrus and Eurus nigh

Is this your glory in a noble line

To leave your confines and to ravage mine?

Whom I - but let these troubled waves subside -

Another tempest and I'll quell your pride!

Go - bear our message to your master's ear,

That wide as ocean I am despot here;

Let him sit monarch in his barren caves,

I wield the trident and control the waves

He said, and as the gathered vapors break

The swelling ocean seemed a peaceful lake;

To lift their ships the graceful nymphs essayed

And the strong trident lent its powerful aid;

The dangerous banks are sunk beneath the main,

And the light chariot skims the unruffled plain.

As when sedition fires the public mind,

And maddening fury leads the rabble blind,

The blazing torch lights up the dread alarm,

Rage points the steel and fury nerves the arm,

Then, if some reverend Sage appear in sight,

They stand - they gaze, and check their headlong flight, -

He turns the current of each wandering breast

And hushes every passion into rest, -

Thus by the power of his imperial arm

The boiling ocean trembled into calm;

With flowing reins the father sped his way

And smiled serene upon rekindled day.