Page:Homer - Iliad, translation Pope, 1909.djvu/152

150 The wounds they washed, their pious tears they shed,

And, laid along their cars, deplored the dead.

Sage Priam checked their grief: with silent haste

The bodies decent on the piles were placed:

With melting hearts the cold remains they burned;

And sadly slow to sacred Troy returned.

Nor less the Greeks their pious sorrows shed,

And decent on the pile dispose the dead;

The cold remains consume with equal care;

And slowly, sadly, to their fleet repair.

Now, ere the morn had streaked with reddening light

The doubtful confines of the day and night;

About the dying flames the Greeks appeared,

And round the pile a general tomb they reared.

Then, to secure the camp and naval powers,

They raised embattled walls with lofty towers:

From space to space were ample gates around,

For passing chariots; and a trench profound,

Of large extent: and deep in earth below

Strong piles infixed stood adverse to the foe.

So toiled the Greeks: meanwhile the gods above,

In shining circle round their father Jove,

Amazed beheld the wondrous works of man:

Then he whose trident shakes the earth began:

"What mortals henceforth shall our power adore,

Our fanes frequent, our oracles implore,

If the proud Grecians thus successful boast

Their rising bulwarks on the sea-beat coast?

See the long walls extending to the main,

No god consulted, and no victim slain!

Their fame shall fill the world's remotest ends,

Wide as the morn her golden beam extends.

While old Laömedon's divine abodes,

Those radiant structures raised by labouring gods,

Shall, razed and lost, in long oblivion sleep."

Thus spoke the hoary monarch of the deep.

The almighty Thunderer with a frown replies,

That clouds the world, and blackens half the skies:

"Strong god of ocean! thou, whose rage can make

The solid earth's eternal basis shake,

What cause of fear from mortal works could move

The meanest subject of our realms above?

Where'er the sun's refulgent rays are cast

Thy power is honoured, and thy fame shall last.

But yon proud work no future age shall view,

No trace remain where once the glory grew.

The sapped foundations by thy force shall fall,

And, whelmed beneath thy waves, drop the huge wall:

Vast drifts of sand shall change the former shore,