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Through thicket and entangled brake
The nearest road the warriors take,
And hark! the war-cry's sound;
The line is formed, and horny feet
Recurrently the champaign beat
And shake the crumbling ground.
A grove by Cære's river grows;
Ancestral reverence round it throws
A terror far and wide:
The shelving hills around have made
A girdle for the pine-wood shade,
Set close on every side.
'Twas there Pelasgian tribes, men say,
Who dwelt in Latium's clime of old,
Kept good Silvanus' holiday,
The guardian god of field and fold.
Hard by encamped there held their post
Brave Tarchon and his Tyrrhene host,
And from the hill-top might be seen
Their legions stretching o'er the green
The Trojans join them on the mead,
And seek refreshment, man and steed.

But careful Venus, heavenly fair,
Had journeyed through the clouds of air,
Her present in her hands:
Deep in the vale her son she spied
Reposing by the river-side,
And thus before him stands:
'Lo, thus the gods their word fulfil:
Behold the arms my husband's skill
Has fashioned in a day:
Fear not conclusions soon to try
With Latium's braggarts, but defy
E'en Turnus to the fray.'