BOOK THE EIGHTH.
285
At him he drew the string: the powerless dart
Fell blunted from his buckler. Fierce he came
And lifting high his ponderous battle-axe, 460
Full on his shoulder drove the furious stroke
Deep-buried in his bosom: prone he fell—
The cold air rush'd upon his heaving heart.
A gallant man, of no ignoble line,
Was Glacidas. His sires had lived in peace; 465
Wisely secluded from the jarring world
They heap'd the hospitable hearth, they spread
The feast; their vassals loved them, and afar
The traveller told their fame. In peace they died;
Exhausted Nature sinking slow to rest. 470
For them the venerable fathers pour'd
A requiem when they slept, and o'er them rais'd
The sculptur'd monument. Now far away
Their offspring falls, the last of all his race!
Slain in a foreign land, and doom'd to share 475
The common grave.
And now their leader slain,
Fell blunted from his buckler. Fierce he came
And lifting high his ponderous battle-axe, 460
Full on his shoulder drove the furious stroke
Deep-buried in his bosom: prone he fell—
The cold air rush'd upon his heaving heart.
A gallant man, of no ignoble line,
Was Glacidas. His sires had lived in peace; 465
Wisely secluded from the jarring world
They heap'd the hospitable hearth, they spread
The feast; their vassals loved them, and afar
The traveller told their fame. In peace they died;
Exhausted Nature sinking slow to rest. 470
For them the venerable fathers pour'd
A requiem when they slept, and o'er them rais'd
The sculptur'd monument. Now far away
Their offspring falls, the last of all his race!
Slain in a foreign land, and doom'd to share 475
The common grave.
And now their leader slain,
The
