Ere

Able was I ere I saw him.

In the act of offering up his last prayer ere he made up his mind to float and be eaten, he saw a man look over the quarter of the brig : he raised both his hands ; he jumped himself up in the water, and, by the singularity of his motions fortunately attracted notice.

Indeed, they had never passed the grotto without leaving some token of respect. In the morning when they led their flocks to pasture, and again in the evening ere they started home, they paid worship to the Deities, and presented either a flower, a green bough, some fruit, or a libation of milk, as an offering; and this piety, as we shall see presently, had its reward.

But I heard him exclaim, ere he drove out of sight "Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good-night."

Yea, and more, / in war enduring, ere he built a home, / and his loved household-deities brought o'er / to Latium, whence the Latin people come, / whence rose the Alban sires, and walls of lofty Rome.

Thus he, / and, ere his speech was ended, smoothed the main, / and chased the clouds and brought the sun again.

"But who are ye, pray answer? on what quest / come ye? and whence and whither are ye bound?" / Her then AEneas, from his inmost breast / heaving a deep-drawn sigh, with labouring speech addressed: / "O Goddess, should I from the first unfold, / or could'st thou hear, the annals of our woe, / eve's star were shining, ere the tale were told."

Not far, with tears, the snowy tents he knew / of Rhesus, where Tydides, bathed in blood, / broke in at midnight with his murderous crew, / and drove the hot steeds campward, ere the food / of Trojan plains they browsed, or drank the Xanthian flood.

Lashed into foam, behind them roars the brine; / now, gliding onward to the beach, ere long / they gain the fields, and rolling bloodshot eyne / that blaze with fire, the monsters move along, / and lick their hissing jaws, and dart a flickering tongue.

"Father, in thy charge remain / Troy's gods; for me, red-handed with the smear / of blood, and fresh from slaughter, 'twere profane / to touch them, ere the stream hath cleansed me of the stain."