Page:Homer - Iliad, translation Pope, 1909.djvu/382

And still indignant bounds above the waves.
Tired by the tides, his knees relax with toil;
Washed from beneath him slides the slimy soil;
When thus, his eyes on heaven's expansion thrown,
Forth bursts the hero with an angry groan:
"Is there no god Achilles to befriend,
No power to avert his miserable end?
Prevent, O Jove! this ignominious date,
And make my future life the sport of fate:
Of all heaven's oracles believed in vain,
But most of Thetis, must her son complain:
By Phoebus' darts she prophesied my fall,
In glorious arms before the Trojan wall.
Oh! had I died in fields of battle warm,
Stretched like a hero, by a hero's arm;
Might Hector's spear this dauntless bosom rend,
And my swift soul o'ertake my slaughtered friend!
Ah no! Achilles meets a shameful fate,
Oh how unworthy of the brave and great!
Like some vile swain, whom, on a rainy day,
Crossing a ford, the torrent sweeps away,
An unregarded carcass to the sea."
Neptune and Pallas haste to his relief,
And thus in human form address the chief:
The Power of ocean first: "Forbear thy fear,
O son of Peleus! lo, thy gods appear!
Behold I from Jove descending to thy aid,
Propitious Neptune, and the blue-eyed Maid.
Stay, and the furious flood shall cease to rave:
'Tis not thy fate to glut his angry wave.
But thou the counsel heaven suggests attend;
Nor breathe from combat, nor thy sword suspend,
Till Troy receive her flying sons, till all
Her routed squadrons pant behind their wall:
Hector alone shall stand his fatal chance,
And Hector's blood shall smoke upon thy lance;
Thine is the glory doomed." Thus spake the gods:
Then swift ascended to the bright abodes.
Stung with new ardour, thus by heaven impelled,
He springs impetuous, and invades the field:
O'er all the expanded plain the waters spread;
Heaved on the bounding billows danced the dead,
Floating 'midst scattered arms: while casques of gold,
And turned-up bucklers, glittered as they rolled.
High o'er the surging tide, by leaps and bounds,
He wades, and mounts; the parted wave resounds.
Now a whole river stops the hero's course,
While Pallas fills him with immortal force.
With equal rage indignant Xanthus roars,