This is not all: Patroclus, on the shore
Now pale and dead, shall succour Greece no more.
Fly to the fleet, this inftant fly, and tell
The fad Achilles, how his lov'd-one fell:
He too may hafte the naked corpse to gain;
The arms are Hector's, who defpoil'd the flain.
The youthful warriour heard with filent woe,
From his fair eyes the tears began to flow;
Big with the mighty grief, he strove to say
What forrow dictates, but no word found way.
To brave Laodocus his arms he flung,
Who near him wheeling, drove his steeds along;
Then ran, the mournful message to impart,
With tear-ful eyes, and with dejected heart.
Swift fled the youth: nor Menelaüs stands,
(Though fore distrest) to aid the Pylian bands;
But bids bold Thrafymede those troops sustain
Himself returns to his Patroclus flain...
Gone is Antilochus (the hero faid)
But hope not, warriours, for Achilles' aid:
Though fierce his rage, unbounded be his woe,
Unarm'd he fights not with the Trojan foe..
'Tis in our hands alone our hopes remain ;.
'Tis our own vigour must the dead regain,
And fave ourselves, while with impetuous hate
Troy pours along, and this way rolls our fate.
'Tis well (faid Ajax); be it then thy care,
With Merion's aid, the weighty corpfe to rear;
Myself and my bold brother will sustain
The shock of Hector and his charging train:
Nor fear we armies, fighting fide by fide;
What Troy can dare, we have already try'd,
Have try'd it, and have ftood. The hero faid;
High from the ground the warriours heave the dead.
A general clamour rifes at the fight:
Loud fhout the Trojans, and renew the fight.
Not fiercer rush along the gloomy wood,
With rage infatiate and with thirst of blood,
Voracious hounds, that many a length before
Their furious hunters drive the wounded boar;
But, if the favage turns his glaring eye,
They howl aloof, and round the forest fly.
Thus on retreating Greece the Trojans pour,
Wave their thick falchions, and their javelins fhower:
But, Ajax turning, to their fears they yield,
All pale they tremble, and forfake the field.
While thus aloft the hero's corpfe they bear,
Behind them rages all the ftorm of war;
Confufion, tumult, horrour, o'er the throng
Of men, steeds, chariots, urg'd the rout along :
Lefs fierce the winds with rising flames confpire, 825
To whelm fome city under waves of fire;
Now fink in gloomy clouds the proud abodes;
Now crack the blazing temples of the Gods;
The rumbling torrent through the ruin rolls,
And sheets of fmoke mount heavy to the poles.
The heroes fweat beneath their honour'd load:
As when two mules, along the rugged road,
From the fteep mountain with exerted strength
Drag fome vaft beam, or maft's unwieldy length;
Inly they groan, big drops of fweat diftil,
Th' enormous timber lumbering down the hill:
So thefe Behind, the bulk of Ajax stands,
And breaks the torrent of the rushing bands.
Thus, when a river fwell'd with fudden rains
Spreads his broad waters o'er the level plains,
Some interpofing hill the stream divides,
And breaks its force, and turns the winding tides.
Still close they follow, close the rear engage;
Æneas ftorms, and Hector foams with rage:
While Greece a heavy, thick retreat maintains,
Wedg'd in one body, like a flight of cranes,
That fhriek inceffant while the falcon, hung
High on pois'd pinions, threats their callow young.
So from the Trojan chiefs the Grecians fly,
Such the wild terrour, and the mingled cry:
Within, without the trench, and all the way,
Strow'd in bright heaps, their arms and armour lay;
Such horrour Jove impreft! yet ftill proceeds
The work of death, and still the battle bleeds..
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