No More Learning

There sleep at last o'ercomes the hero's eyes;
While foul in dust the unhonour'd carcase lies,
But not deserted by the pitying skies:
For Phoebus watch'd it with superior care,
Preserved from gaping wounds and tainting air;
And, ignominious as it swept the field,
Spread o'er the sacred corse his golden shield.
All heaven was moved, and Hermes will'd to go
By stealth to snatch him from the insulting foe:
But Neptune this, and Pallas this denies,
And th' unrelenting empress of the skies,
E'er since that day implacable to Troy,
What time young Paris, simple shepherd boy,
Won by destructive lust (reward obscene),
Their charms rejected for the Cyprian queen.
But when the tenth celestial morning broke,
To heaven assembled, thus Apollo spoke:

[Illustration: HECTOR'S BODY AT THE CAR OF ACHILLES. ]

HECTOR'S BODY AT THE CAR OF ACHILLES.


"Unpitying powers! how oft each holy fane
Has Hector tinged with blood of victims slain?
And can ye still his cold remains pursue?
Still grudge his body to the Trojans' view?
Deny to consort, mother, son, and sire,
The last sad honours of a funeral fire?
Is then the dire Achilles all your care?
That iron heart, inflexibly severe;
A lion, not a man, who slaughters wide,
In strength of rage, and impotence of pride;
Who hastes to murder with a savage joy,
Invades around, and breathes but to destroy!
Shame is not of his soul; nor understood,
The greatest evil and the greatest good.
Still for one loss he rages unresign'd,
Repugnant to the lot of all mankind;
To lose a friend, a brother, or a son,
Heaven dooms each mortal, and its will is done:
Awhile they sorrow, then dismiss their care;
Fate gives the wound, and man is born to bear.
But this insatiate, the commission given
By fate exceeds, and tempts the wrath of heaven:
Lo, how his rage dishonest drags along
Hector's dead earth, insensible of wrong!
Brave though he be, yet by no reason awed,
He violates the laws of man and god.
"

[Illustration: THE JUDGMENT OF PARIS. ]

THE JUDGMENT OF PARIS.


"If equal honours by the partial skies
Are doom'd both heroes, (Juno thus replies,)
If Thetis' son must no distinction know,
Then hear, ye gods! the patron of the bow.
But Hector only boasts a mortal claim,
His birth deriving from a mortal dame:
Achilles, of your own ethereal race,
Springs from a goddess by a man's embrace
(A goddess by ourself to Peleus given,
A man divine, and chosen friend of heaven)
To grace those nuptials, from the bright abode
Yourselves were present; where this minstrel-god,
Well pleased to share the feast, amid the quire
Stood proud to hymn, and tune his youthful lyre. "

Then thus the Thunderer checks the imperial dame:
"Let not thy wrath the court of heaven inflame;
Their merits, nor their honours, are the same.
But mine, and every god's peculiar grace
Hector deserves, of all the Trojan race:
Still on our shrines his grateful offerings lay,
(The only honours men to gods can pay,)
Nor ever from our smoking altar ceased
The pure libation, and the holy feast:
Howe'er by stealth to snatch the corse away,
We will not: Thetis guards it night and day.
But haste, and summon to our courts above
The azure queen; let her persuasion move
Her furious son from Priam to receive
The proffer'd ransom, and the corse to leave. "

He added not: and Iris from the skies,
Swift as a whirlwind, on the message flies,
Meteorous the face of ocean sweeps,
Refulgent gliding o'er the sable deeps.
Between where Samos wide his forests spreads,
And rocky Imbrus lifts its pointed heads,
Down plunged the maid; (the parted waves resound;)
She plunged and instant shot the dark profound.
As bearing death in the fallacious bait,
From the bent angle sinks the leaden weight;
So pass'd the goddess through the closing wave,
Where Thetis sorrow'd in her secret cave:
There placed amidst her melancholy train
(The blue-hair'd sisters of the sacred main)
Pensive she sat, revolving fates to come,
And wept her godlike son's approaching doom.
Then thus the goddess of the painted bow:
"Arise, O Thetis! from thy seats below,
'Tis Jove that calls. "--"And why (the dame replies)
Calls Jove his Thetis to the hated skies?
Sad object as I am for heavenly sight!
Ah may my sorrows ever shun the light!