Delphi Poetry Anthology: The World's Greatest Poems (Delphi Poets Series Book 50) Read Free Page B

backward from the gaping woundThe reeking jav’lin, cast it on the ground.The thronging Greeks behold with wond’ring eyes    465 His manly beauty and superior size:While some, ignobler, the great dead defaceWith wounds ungen’rous, or with taunts disgrace.‘How changed that Hector! who, like Jove, of lateSent lightning on our fleets and scatter’d Fate!’    470   High o’er the slain the great Achilles stands,Begirt with heroes and surrounding bands;And thus aloud, while all the host attends:‘Princes and leaders! countrymen and friends!Since now at length the powerful will of Heav’n    475 The dire destroyer to our arm has giv’n,Is not Troy fall’n already? Haste, ye Powers!See if already their deserted towersAre left unmann’d; or if they yet retainThe souls of heroes, their great Hector slain?    480 But what is Troy, or glory what to me?Or why reflects my mind on aught but thee,Divine Patroclus! Death has seal’d his eyes;Unwept, unhonour’d, uninterr’d he lies!Can his dear image from my soul depart,    485 Long as the vital spirit moves my heart?If, in the melancholy shades below,The flames of friends and lovers cease to glow,Yet mine shall sacred last; mine, undecay’d,Burn on thro’ death, and animate my shade.    490 Meanwhile, ye sons of Greece, in triumph bringThe corse of Hector, and your Pæans sing.Be this the song, slow moving tow’rd the shore,“Hector is dead, and Ilion is no more.” ‘   Then his fell soul a thought of vengeance bred    495 (Unworthy of himself, and of the dead);The nervous ancles bored, his feet he boundWith thongs inserted thro’ the double wound;These fix’d up high behind the rolling wain,His graceful head was trail’d along the plain.    500 Proud on his car th’ insulting victor stood,And bore aloft his arms, distilling blood.He smites the steeds; the rapid chariot flies;The sudden clouds of circling dust arise.Now lost is all that formidable air;    505 The face divine, and long-descending hair,Purple the ground, and streak the sable sand;Deform’d, dishonour’d, in his native land!Giv’n to the rage of an insulting throng!And, in his parents’ sight, now dragg’d along.    510   The mother first beheld with sad survey;She rent her tresses, venerably grey,And cast far off the regal veils away.With piercing shrieks his bitter fate she moans,While the sad father answers groans with groans;    515 Tears after tears his mournful cheeks o’erflow,And the whole city wears one face of woe:No less than if the rage of hostile fires,From her foundations curling to her spires,O’er the proud citadel at length should rise,    520 And the last blaze send Ilion to the skies.The wretched Monarch of the falling state,Distracted, presses to the Dardan gate:Scarce the whole people stop his desp’rate course,While strong affliction gives the feeble force:    525 Grief tears his heart, and drives him to and fro,In all the raging impotence of woe.At length he roll’d in dust, and thus begun,Imploring all, and naming one by one:‘Ah! let me, let me go where sorrow calls;    530 I, only I, will issue from your walls(Guide or companion, friends! I ask ye none),And bow before the murd’rer, of my son:My grief perhaps his pity may engage;Perhaps at least he may respect my age.    535 He has a father too; a man like me;One not exempt from age and misery(Vig’rous no more, as when his young embraceBegot this pest of me, and all my race).How many valiant sons, in early bloom,    540 Has that curs’d hand sent headlong to the tomb!Thee, Hector! last; thy loss (divinely brave)!Sinks my sad soul with sorrow to the grave.Oh had thy gentle spirit pass’d in peace,The son expiring in the sire’s embrace,    545 While both thy parents wept thy fatal hour,And, bending o’er thee, mix’d the tender shower!Some comfort that had been, some sad relief,To melt in full satiety of grief!’   Thus wail’d the father, grov’ling on the ground,