Page:The Poems of Oscar Wilde.pdf/230

 To no less eager eyes; often indeed

In the great epic of Polymnia's scroll I love to read

How Asia sent her myriad hosts to war

Against a little town, and panoplied

In gilded mail with jewelled scimitar,

White-shielded, purple-crested, rode the Mede

Between the waving poplars and the sea

Which men call Artemisium, till he saw Thermopylæ

Its steep ravine spanned by a narrow wall,

And on the nearer side a little brood

Of careless lions holding festival!

And stood amazèd at such hardihood,

And pitched his tent upon the reedy shore,

And stayed two days to wonder, and then crept at midnight o'er

Some unfrequented height, and coming down

The autumn forests treacherously slew

What Sparta held most dear and was the crown

Of far Eurotas, and passed on, nor knew

How God had staked an evil net for him

In the small bay at Salamis,—and yet, the page grows dim, 216