Page:Homer - Iliad, translation Pope, 1909.djvu/335



like the rage of fire the combat burns,

And now it rises, now it sinks, by turns.

Meanwhile, where Hellespont's broad waters flow,

Stood Nestor's son, the messenger of woe.

There sat Achilles, shaded by his sails,

On hoisted yards extended to the gales;

Pensive he sat; for all that fate designed

Rose in sad prospect to his boding mind.

Thus to his soul he said: "Ah what constrains

The Greeks, late victors, now to quit the plains?

Is this the day, which heaven so long ago

Ordained, to sink me with the weight of woe;

So Thetis warned, when, by a Trojan hand,

The bravest of the Myrmidonian band

Should lose the light? Fulfilled is that decree?

Fallen is the warrior, and Patroclus he?

In vain I charged him soon to quit the plain,

And warned to shun Hectorean force in vain!"

Thus while he thinks, Antilochus appears,

And tells the melancholy tale with tears: