Page:Homer - Iliad, translation Pope, 1909.djvu/230

228 And stones and darts in mingled tempests fly.

As when sharp Boreas blows abroad, and brings

The dreary winter on his frozen wings;

Beneath the low-hung clouds the sheets of snow

Descend, and whiten all the fields below:

So fast the darts on either army pour,

So down the rampires rolls the rocky shower;

Heavy, and thick, resound the battered shields,

And the deaf echo rattles round the fields.

With shame repulsed, with grief and fury driven,

The frantic Asius thus accuses heaven:

"In powers immortal who shall now believe?

Can those too flatter, and can Jove deceive?

What man can doubt but Troy's victorious power

Should humble Greece, and this her fatal hour?

But like when wasps from hollow crannies drive,

To guard the entrance of their common hive,

Darkening the rock, while, with unwearied wings,

They strike the assailants, and infix their stings;

A race determined, that to death contend:

So fierce, these Greeks their last retreat defend.

Gods! shall two warriors only guard their gates,

Repel an army, and defraud the fates?"

These empty accents mingled with the wind,

Nor moved great Jove's unalterable mind;

To godlike Hector and his matchless might

Was owed the glory of the destined fight.

Like deeds of arms through all the forts were tried,

And all the gates sustained an equal tide;

Through the long walls the stony showers were heard,

The blaze of flames, the flash of arms, appeared.

The spirit of a god my breast inspire,

To raise each act to life, and sing with fire!

While Greece unconquered kept alive the war,

Secure of death, confiding in despair,

And all her guardian gods, in deep dismay,

With unassisting arms deplored the day.

E'en yet the dauntless Lapithæ maintain

The dreadful pass, and round them heap the slain.

First Damasus, by Polypœtes' steel

Pierced through his helmet's brazen vizor, fell;

The weapon drank the mingled brains and gore;

The warrior sinks, tremendous now no more!

Next Ormenus and Pylon yield their breath:

Nor less Leonteus strews the field with death;

First through the belt Hippomachus he gored,

Then sudden waved his unresisted sword;

Antiphates, as through the ranks he broke,

The faulchion struck, and fate pursued the stroke;