Page:Homer - Iliad, translation Pope, 1909.djvu/239

Observed the Thunderer, nor observed in vain.
In Samothracia, on a mountain's brow,
Whose waving woods o'erhung the deeps below,
He sat; and round him cast his azure eyes,
Where Ida's misty tops confus'dly rise;
Below, fair Ilion's glittering spires were seen;
The crowded ships, and sable seas between.
There, from the crystal chambers of the main
Emerged, he sat, and mourned his Argives slain.
At Jove incensed, with grief and fury stung,
Prone down the rocky steep he rushed along;
Fierce as he passed, the lofty mountains nod,
The forests shake; earth trembled as he trod,
And felt the footsteps of the immortal god.
From realm to realm three ample strides he took,
And, at the fourth, the distant Ægæ shook.
⁠Far in the bay his shining palace stands,
Eternal frame, not raised by mortal hands:
This having reached, his brass-hoofed steeds he reins,
Fleet as the winds, and decked with golden manes.
Refulgent arms his mighty limbs infold,
Immortal arms of adamant and gold.
He mounts the car, the golden scourge applies,
He sits superior, and the chariot flies:
His whirling wheels the glassy surface sweep;
The enormous monsters, rolling o'er the deep,
Gambol around him on the watery way,
And heavy whales in awkward measures play:
The sea subsiding spreads a level plain,
Exults, and owns the monarch of the main;
The parting waves before his coursers fly;
The wondering waters leave his axle dry.
⁠Deep in the liquid regions lies a cave,
Between where Tenedos the surges lave,
And rocky Imbrus breaks the rolling wave:
There the great ruler of the azure round
Stopped his swift chariot, and his steeds unbound,
Fed with ambrosial herbage from his hand,
And linked their fetlocks with a golden band,
Infrangible, immortal: there they stay;
The father of the floods pursues his way,
Where, like a tempest darkening heaven around,
Or fiery deluge that devours the ground,
The impatient Trojans, in a gloomy throng,
Embattled rolled, as Hector rushed along:
To the loud tumult and the barbarous cry,
The heavens re-echo, and the shores reply;
They vow destruction to the Grecian name,

And in their hopes the fleets already flame.