Page:Homer - Iliad, translation Pope, 1909.djvu/412

Forth burst the stormy band with thundering roar,
And heaps on heaps the clouds are tossed before.
To the wide main then stooping from the skies,
The heaving deeps in watery mountains rise:
Troy feels the blast along her shaking walls,
Till on the pile the gathered tempest falls.
The structure crackles in the roaring fires.
And all the night the plenteous flame aspires:
All night Achilles hails Patroclus' soul,
With large libation from the golden bowl,
As a poor father, helpless and undone,
Mourns o'er the ashes of an only son,
Takes a sad pleasure the last bones to burn,
And pour in tears, ere yet they close the urn:
So stayed Achilles, circling round the shore,
So watched the flames, till now they flame no more.
'Twas when, emerging through the shades of night,
The morning planet told the approach of light;
And, fast behind, Aurora's warmer ray
O'er the broad ocean poured the golden day:
Then sunk the blaze, the pile no longer burned,
And to their caves the whistling winds returned:
Across the Thracian seas their course they bore;
The ruffled seas beneath their passage roar.
Then, parting from the pile, he ceased to weep,
And sunk to quiet in the embrace of sleep,
Exhausted with his grief: meanwhile the crowd
Of thronging Grecians round Achilles stood:
The tumult waked him: from his eyes he shook
Unwilling slumber, and the chiefs bespoke:
"Ye kings and princes of the Achaian name!
First let us quench the yet remaining flame
With sable wine ; then, as the rites direct,
The hero's bones with careful view select:
Apart, and easy to be known they lie,
Amidst the heap, and obvious to the eye:
The rest around the margins will be seen,
Promiscuous, steeds and immolated men.
These, wrapped In double cauls of fat, prepare;
And in the golden vase dispose with care;
There let them rest, with decent honour laid,
Till I shall follow to the Infernal shade.
Meantime erect the tomb with pious hands,
A common structure on the humble sands;
Hereafter Greece some nobler work may raise,
And late posterity record our praise."
The Greeks obey; where yet the embers glow,
Wide o'er the pile the sable wine they throw,
And deep subsides the ashy heap below.