Page:Homer - Iliad, translation Pope, 1909.djvu/304

Pierced through the shoulders as he mounts his steeds:
Back from the car he tumbles to the ground;
His swimming eyes eternal shades surround.
Next Erymas was doomed his fate to feel:
His opened mouth received the Cretan steel;
Beneath the brain the point a passage tore,
Crashed the thin bones, and drowned the teeth in gore.
His mouth, his eyes, his nostrils, pour a flood;
He sobs his soul out in the gush of blood.
As when the flocks neglected by the swain,
Or kids or lambs, lie scattered o'er the plain,
A troop of wolves the unguarded charge survey,
And rend the trembling, unresisting prey:
Thus on the foe the Greeks impetuous came:
Troy fled, unmindful of her former fame.
But still at Hector godlike Ajax aimed,
Still, pointed at his breast, his javelin flamed:
The Trojan chief, experienced in the field,
O'er his broad shoulders spread the massy shield,
Observed the storm of darts the Grecians pour,
And on his buckler caught the ringing shower.
He sees for Greece the scale of conquest rise,
Yet stops, and turns, and saves his loved allies.
As when the hand of Jove a tempest forms,
And rolls the clouds to blacken heaven with storms,
Dark o'er the fields the ascending vapour flies.
And shades the sun, and blots the golden skies:
So from the ships, along the dusky plain,
Dire Fright and Terror drove the Trojan train.
E'en Hector fled; through heaps of disarray
The fiery coursers forced their lord away:
While far behind his Trojans fall confused,
Wedged in the trench, in one vast carnage bruised.
Chariots on chariots roll; the clashing spokes
Shock, while the maddening steeds break short their yokes.
In vain they labour up the steepy mound;
Their charioteers lie foaming on the ground.
Fierce on the rear, with shouts, Patroclus flies;
Tumultuous clamour fills the fields and skies;
Thick drifts of dust involve their rapid flight;
Clouds rise on clouds, and heaven is snatched from sight.
The affrighted steeds, their dying lords cast down,
Scour o'er the fields, and stretch to reach the town.
Loud o'er the rout was heard the victor's cry,
Where the war bleeds, and where the thickest die;
Where horse, and arms, and chariots, lie overthrown,
And bleeding heroes under axles groan.
No stop, no check, the steeds of Peleus knew;
From bank to bank the immortal coursers flew,