Creusa

Uprose the image of my father dear, / as there I see the monarch, bathed in blood, / like him in prowess and in age his peer. / Uprose Creusa, desolate and drear, / Iulus' peril, and a plundered home.

"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."

"Dost thou for this, dear mother, me through fire / and foeman safely to my home restore; / to see Creusa, and my son and sire / each foully butchered in the other's gore, / and Danaans dealing slaughter at the door?"

Once more I girt me with the sword and shield, / and forth had soon into the battle hied, / when lo, Creusa at the doorway kneeled, / and reached Iulus to his sire and cried:

So wailed Creusa, and in wild despair / filled all the palace with her sobs and cries, / when lo! a portent, wondrous to declare. / For while, 'twixt sorrowing parents' hands and eyes, / stood young Iulus, wildered with surprise, / up from the summit of his fair, young head / a tuft was seen of flickering flame to rise. / Gently and harmless to the touch it spread / around his tender brows, and on his temples fed.

His little hand in mine, / Iulus totters at his father's side; / behind me comes Creusa.

Then trembling seized me and, amidst my fear, / what power I know not, but some power unkind / confused my wandering wits, and robbed me of my mind. / For while, the byways following, I left / the beaten track, ah! woe and well away! / my wife Creusa lost me – whether reft / by Fate, or faint or wandering astray, / I know not.

I shout, and through the darkness shout again, / rousing the streets, and call and call anew / "Creusa", and "Creusa", but in vain.

"Naught happens here but as the Gods ordain. / It may not be, nor doth the Lord divine / of high Olympus nor the Fates design / that thou should'st take Creusa."

"Wide rule and happy days await thee there, / and royal marriage shall thy portion be. / Weep not for lov'd Creusa, weep not."