Aeneid (Harvard Classics, Vol 13)

by Virgil

“Great queen, what you command me to relate Renews the sad remembrance of our fate: An empire from its old foundations rent, And ev’ry woe the Trojans underwent; A peopled city made a desart place; All that I saw, and part of which I was: Not ev’n the hardest of our foes could hear, Nor stern Ulysses tell without a tear. And now the latter watch of wasting night, And setting stars, to kindly rest invite; But, since you take such int’rest in our woe, And Troy’s disastrous end desire to know, I will restrain my tears, and briefly tell What in our last and fatal night befell.