Part 51 (1/2)

Jove view'd the combat with a stern survey, And eyes that flash'd intolerable day

Fix'd on the field his sight, his breast debates The vengeance due, and e their prompt effect, and call The force of Hector to Patroclus' fall, This instant see his short-lived trophies won, And stretch hihter'd son; Or yet, with ht

To crown Achilles' valiant friend with praise At length he doolory, bids him drive the foe; Nor unattended see the shades below

Then Hector's mind he fills with dire dismay; He mounts his car, and calls his hosts away; Sunk with Troy's heavy fates, he sees decline The scales of Jove, and pants with awe divine

Then, nor before, the hardy Lycians fled, And left their monarch with the come rises, as the heroes fall

(So Jove decreed!) At length the Greeks obtain The prize contested, and despoil the slain

The radiant arlorious spoils adorn

Then thus to Phoebus, in the real Jove: ”Descend, ht convey Sarpedon slain; Then bathe his body in the crystal flood, With dust dishonour'd, and deform'd with blood; O'er all his limbs ambrosial odours shed, And with celestial robes adorn the dead

Those rites discharged, his sacred corse bequeath To the soft arms of silent Sleep and Death

They to his friends the ie shall bear; His friends a tomb and pyramid shall rear: What honour ive!”

[Illustration: SLEEP AND DEATH CONVEYING THE BODY OF SARPEDON TO LYCIA]

SLEEP AND DEATH CONVEYING THE BODY OF SARPEDON TO LYCIA

Apollo bows, and froht; Thence from the war the breathless hero bore, Veil'd in a cloud, to silver Simois' shore; There bathed his honourable wounds, and dress'd His manly members in the immortal vest; And with perfumes of sweet ambrosial dews Restores his freshness, and his fored race, Of matchless swiftness, but of silent pace, Received Sarpedon, at the God's command, And in afriends they laid, Where endless honours wait the sacred shade

Meanwhile Patroclus pours along the plains, With foa coursers, and with loosen'd reins

Fierce on the Trojan and the Lycian crew, Ah blind to fate! thy headlong fury flew Against what fate and powerful Jove ordain, Vain was thy friend's coe vain

For he, the God, whose counsels uncontroll'd Disives, resued thee on to fall

Who first, brave hero! by that areance press'd the plain; When heaven itself thy fatal fury led, And call'd to fill the number of the dead?

Adrestus first; Autonous then succeeds; Echeclus follows; next young Megas bleeds, Epistor, Melanippus, bite the ground; The slaughter, Elasus and Mulius crown'd: Then sunk Pylartes to eternal night; The rest, dispersing, trust their fates to flight

Now Troy had stoop'd beneath hisPhoebus kept the sacred tower Thrice at the battleis thrice Apollo shook; He tried the fourth; when, bursting from the cloud, A more than mortal voice was heard aloud

”Patroclus! cease; this heaven-defended wall Defies thy lance; not fated yet to fall; Thy friend, thy greater far, it shall withstand, Troy shall not stoop even to Achilles' hand”

So spoke the God who darts celestial fires; The Greek obeys hi at the Scaean gates His panting coursers, in his breast debates, Or in the field his forces to employ, Or draw the troops within the walls of Troy

Thus while he thought, beside hiar's flood; (Thy brother, Hecuba! fro;) Thus he accosts hiht!

God! is it Hector that forbears the fight?

Were thine our this successful spear Should soon convince thee of so false a fear

Turn thee, ah turn thee to the field of fame, And in Patroclus' blood efface thy shame

Perhaps Apollo shall thy arms succeed, And heaven ordains hi God; then took his flight, And plunged aht

He bids Cebrion drive the rapid car; The lash resounds, the coursers rush to war

The God the Grecians' sinking souls depress'd, And pour'd swift spirits through each Trojan breast

Patroclus lights, iht; A spear his left, a stone eht: With all his nerves he drives it at the foe

Pointed above, and rough and gross below: The falling ruin crush'd Cebrion's head, The lawless offspring of king Priauish'd wound: The bursting balls drop sightless to the ground

The charioteer, while yet he held the rein, Struck fro on the plain

To the dark shades the soul unwilling glides, While the proud victor thus his fall derides

”Good heaven! what active feats yon artist shows!