Page:Homer - Iliad, translation Pope, 1909.djvu/115

608—656 And wakes anew the dying flames of fight.

They turn, they stand: the Greeks their fury dare,

Condense their powers, and wait the growing war.

As when, on Ceres' sacred floor, the swain

Spreads the wide fan to clear the golden grain,

And the light chaff, before the breezes borne,

Ascends in clouds from off the heapy corn;

The grey dust, rising with collected winds,

Drives o'er the barn, and whitens all the hinds:

So, white with dust, the Grecian host appears,

From trampling steeds and thundering charioteers;

The dusky clouds from laboured earth arise,

And roll in smoking volumes to the skies.

Mars hovers o'er them with his sable shield,

And adds new horrors to the darkened field;

Pleased with this charge, and ardent to fulfil,

In Troy's defence, Apollo's heavenly will:

Soon as from fight the blue-eyed Maid retires,

Each Trojan bosom with new warmth he fires.

And now the god, from forth his sacred fane,

Produced Æneas to the shouting train;

Alive, unharmed, with all his peers around,

Erect he stood, and vigorous from his wound:

Inquiries none they made; the dreadful day

No pause of words admits, no dull delay;

Fierce Discord storms, Apollo loud exclaims,

Fame calls, Mars thunders, and the field's in flames.

Stern Diomed with either Ajax stood,

And great Ulysses, bathed in hostile blood.

Embodied close, the labouring Grecian train

The fiercest shock of charging hosts sustain;

Unmoved and silent, the whole war they wait,

Serenely dreadful, and as fixed as fate.

So, when the embattled clouds in dark array

Along the skies their gloomy lines display,

When now the North his boisterous rage has spent,

And peaceful sleeps the liquid element,

The low-hung vapours, motionless and still,

Rest on the summits of the shaded hill,

Till the mass scatters as the winds arise,

Dispersed and broken, through the ruffled skies.

Nor was the general wanting to his train;

From troop to troop he toils through all the plain:

"Ye Greeks, be men! the charge of battle bear;

Your brave associates, and yourselves revere!

Let glorious acts more glorious acts inspire,

And catch from breast to breast the noble fire!

On valour's side the odds of combat lie,

The brave live glorious, or lamented die;