Page:Homer - Iliad, translation Pope, 1909.djvu/409

117—165 Like a thin smoke he sees the spirit fly,

And hears a feeble, lamentable cry.

Confused he wakes; amazement breaks the bands

Of golden sleep, and, starting from the sands,

Pensive he muses with uplifted hands:

"'Tis true, 'tis certain; man, though dead, retains

Part of himself; the immortal mind remains:

The form subsists, without the body's aid,

Aërial semblance, and an empty shade!

This night, my friend, so late in battle lost,

Stood at my side a pensive, plaintive ghost;

E'en now familiar, as in life, he came,

Alas, how different! yet how like the same!"

Thus while he spoke, each eye grew big with tears;

And now the rosy-fingered morn appears,

Shews every mournful face with tears o'erspread,

And glares on the pale visage of the dead.

But Agamemnon, as the rites demand,

With mules and waggons sends a chosen band

To load the timber, and the pile to rear;

A charge consigned to Merion's faithful care.

With proper instruments they take the road,

Axes to cut, and ropes to sling the load.

First march the heavy mules, securely slow,

O'er hills, o'er dales, o'er crags, o'er rocks they go:

Jumping, high o'er the shrubs of the rough ground,

Rattle the clattering cars, and the shocked axles bound.

But when arrived at Ida's spreading woods,

Fair Ida, watered with descending floods,

Loud sounds the axe, redoubling strokes on strokes;

On all sides round the forest hurls her oaks

Headlong. Deep-echoing groan the thickets brown;

Then rustling, crackling, crashing, thunder down:

The wood the Grecians cleave, prepared to burn;

And the slow mules the same rough road return.

The sturdy woodmen equal burthens bore,

Such charge was given them, to the sandy shore;

There on the spot which great Achilles shewed,

They eased their shoulders and disposed the load;

Circling around the place, where times to come

Shall view Patroclus' and Achilles' tomb.

The hero bids his martial troops appear,

High on their cars, in all the pomp of war:

Each in refulgent arms his limbs attires,

All mount their chariots, combatants and squires.

The chariots first proceed, a shining train;

Then clouds of foot that smoke along the plain;

Next these a melancholy band appear,

Amidst, lay dead Patroclus on the bier: