which I cannot afford to aim, more than make up for his losses. After this confession, I frankly contrast his rendering of the two noblest passages with mine, that the reader may see, what Mr Arnold does not show, my weak and strong sides.
Gladstone, Iliad 4, 422
As when the billow gathers fast
With slow and sullen roar
Beneath the keen northwestern blast
Against the sounding shore:
First far at sea it rears its crest,
Then bursts upon the beach,
Or[1] with proud arch and swelling breast,
Where headlands[A] outward reach,
It smites their strength, and bellowing flings
Its silver foam afar;
So, stern and thick, the Danaan kings
And soldiers marched to war.
Each leader gave his men the word;
Each warrior deep in silence heard.
So mute they march'd, thou could'st not ken
They were a mass of speaking men:
And as they strode in martial might,
Their flickering arms shot back the light.
But as at even the folded sheep
Of some rich master stand,
Ten thousand thick their place they keep,
And bide the milkman's hand,
And more and more they bleat, the more
They hear their lamblings cry;
So, from the Trojan host, uproar
And din rose loud and high.
- ↑ I think he has mistaken the summit of the wave
for a headland, and has made a single description
into two, by the word Or: but I now confine my regard
to the metre and general effect of the style.
