There in the middle court a shadowy elmIts ancient branches spreads, and in its leavesDeluding visions ever haunt and cling.Then come strange prodigies of bestial kind :Centaurs are stabled there, and double shapesLike Scylla, or the dragon Lerna bred,With hideous scream; Briareus clutching farHis hundred hands, Chimaera girt with flame,A crowd of Gorgons, Harpies of foul wing,And giant Geryon's triple-monstered shade.Aeneas, shuddering with sudden fear,Drew sword and fronted them with naked steel;And, save his sage conductress bade him knowThese were but shapes and shadows sweeping by,His stroke had cloven in vain the vacant air.