Page:Aeneid (Conington 1866).djvu/70

46 And through the city, stretched at will,

Sleep the tired Trojans, and are still.

And now from Tenedos set free

The Greeks are sailing on the sea,

Bound for the shore where erst they lay,

Beneath the still moon's friendly ray:

When in a moment leaps to sight

On the King's ship the signal light,

And Sinon, screened by partial fate,

Unlocks the pine-wood prison's gate.

The horse its charge to air restores,

And forth the armed invasion pours.

Thessander, Sthenelus, the first,

Slide down the rope: Ulysses curst,

Thoas and Acamas are there,

And great Pelides' youthful heir,

Machaon, Menelaus, last

Epeus, who the plot forecast.

They seize the city, buried deep

In floods of revelry and sleep,

Cut down the warders of the gates,

And introduce their conscious mates.

It was the hour when Heaven gives rest

To weary man, the first and best:

Lo, as I slept, in saddest guise,

The form of Hector seemed to rise,

Full sorrow gushing from his eyes;

All torn by dragging at the car,

And black with gory dust of war,

As once on earth,—his swoln feet bored,

And festering from the inserted cord.

Ah! what a sight was there to view!

How altered from the man we knew,