Part 56 (1/2)

Wrath and revenge from men and Gods remove: Far, far too dear to every mortal breast, Sweet to the soul, as honey to the taste: Gathering like vapours of a noxious kind Froan to fate

Yes--I will meet the murderer of my friend; Or (if the Gods ordain it) est cannot shun: The great Alcides, Jove's unequall'd son, To Juno's hate, at length resign'd his breath, And sunk the victi death

So shall Achilles fall! stretch'd pale and dead, No more the Grecian hope, or Trojan dread!

Let lory life's short harvest yields

Shall I not force so dishevell'd hair?

Shall I not force her breast to heave with sighs, And the soft tears to trickle froive the fair those mournful charms-- In vain you hold uine torrent spread so wide, That all shall know Achilles swells the tide”

”My son (coerulean Thetis h,) The host to succour, and thy friends to save, Is worthy thee; the duty of the brave

But canst thou, naked, issue to the plains?

Thy radiant ar Hector bears the spoils on high, But vainly glories, for his fate is nigh

Yet, yet awhile thy generous ardour stay; assured, I lorious load), Vulcanian arhters of the main, The Goddess thus dismiss'd her azure train:

”Ye sister Nereids! to your deeps descend; Haste, and our father's sacred seat attend; I go to find the architect divine, Where vast Olympus' starry suave: The sea-green sisters plunge beneath the wave: Thetis once more ascends the bless'd abodes, And treads the brazen threshold of the Gods

[Illustration: THETIS ORDERING THE NEREIDS TO DESCEND INTO THE SEA]

THETIS ORDERING THE NEREIDS TO DESCEND INTO THE SEA

And now the Greeks froe to broad hellespont their headlong course; Nor yet their chiefs Patroclus' body bore Safe through the tempest to the tented shore

The horse, the foot, with equal fury join'd, Pour'd on the rear, and thunder'd close behind: And like a flae of Hector o'er the ranks was borne

Thrice the slain hero by the foot he drew; Thrice to the skies the Trojan clamours flew: As oft the Ajaces his assault sustain; But check'd, he turns; repuls'd, attacks again

With fiercer shouts his lingering troops he fires, Nor yields a step, nor from his post retires: So watchful shepherds strive to force, in vain, The hungry lion from a carcase slain

Even yet Patroclus had he borne away, And all the glories of the extended day, Had not high Juno froer

The various Goddess of the showery bow, Shot in a ind to the shore below; To great Achilles at his shi+ps she caan the many-colour'd dame:

”Rise, son of Peleus! rise, divinely brave!

assist the cohter to the fleet they spread, And fall byhie of Hector ends: A prey to dogs he dooms the corse to lie, And h

Rise, and prevent (if yet you think of farace, thy own eternal shame!”

”Who sends thee, Goddess, from the ethereal skies?”

Achilles thus And Iris thus replies:

”I come, Pelides! from the queen of Jove, The immortal empress of the realh, Unknown to all the synod of the sky”

”Thou comest in vain (he cries, with fury warht unar as I a me at the dawn of day Vulcanian arhty Telamonian shi+eld?

That, inlance around hiallant chief defends Menoetius' son, And does what his Achilles should have done”

”Thy want of arh unaro!

Let but Achilles o'er yon trench appear, Proud Troy shall trelance of that tree, and disdain to fly”