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with failing hand and no tearless eye) essay to shake my silent sorrow from its torpor, leaning against the tomb in which thou dost rest at peace in our own fields,—those fields where after Aeneas’ death star-bright Ascanius set Alba upon Latian hills,^[1] in hatred of the plains that Phrygian blood had drenched, the royal dower of his ill-omened stepdame.^[2] Here in thy honour—nor softer is the fragrant breath of Sicanian crocus, nor the rare cinnamon that rich Sabaeans pluck thee, nor perfumed blossoms of Arabia—O thou who deservest full meed of holy offerings, do I make musical lament; ah! receive the groans and the anguish of thy son, and tears such as have been shed for but few fathers. Would it were my fortune, to build an altar to thy shade, a work that would match temples, to raise high the soaring fabric, higher than Cyclopean rock or the Pyramids’ bold masonry, and plant a mighty grove about thy tomb. There had I surpassed the tribute of the Sicilian sepulchre, and Nemea’s precinct and the rites of maimed Pelops.^[3] There no naked band of Grecian athletes would cleave the air with the Oebalian disk,^[4] no sweat of steeds would water the ground or hoof-beat ring upon the crumbling track; there would be but the choir of Phoebus, and I would duly sing thy praise, O father, and bind on thee the minstrel’s prize of leaves. I myself, as priest of the dead and of thy soul, would with moist eyes lead a mournful dirge, from which