No More Learning

Chased from the foremost line, the Grecian train
Now man the next, receding toward the main:
Wedged in one body at the tents they stand,
Wall'd round with sterns, a gloomy, desperate band.
Now manly shame forbids the inglorious flight;
Now fear itself confines them to the fight:
Man courage breathes in man; but Nestor most
(The sage preserver of the Grecian host)
Exhorts, adjures, to guard these utmost shores;
And by their parents, by themselves implores.

"Oh friends! be men: your generous breasts inflame
With mutual honour, and with mutual shame!
Think of your hopes, your fortunes; all the care
Your wives, your infants, and your parents share:
Think of each living father's reverend head;
Think of each ancestor with glory dead;
Absent, by me they speak, by me they sue,
They ask their safety, and their fame, from you:
The gods their fates on this one action lay,
And all are lost, if you desert the day. "

He spoke, and round him breathed heroic fires;
Minerva seconds what the sage inspires.
The mist of darkness Jove around them threw
She clear'd, restoring all the war to view;
A sudden ray shot beaming o'er the plain,
And show'd the shores, the navy, and the main:
Hector they saw, and all who fly, or fight,
The scene wide-opening to the blaze of light,
First of the field great Ajax strikes their eyes,
His port majestic, and his ample size:
A ponderous mace with studs of iron crown'd,
Full twenty cubits long, he swings around;
Nor fights, like others, fix'd to certain stands
But looks a moving tower above the bands;
High on the decks with vast gigantic stride,
The godlike hero stalks from side to side.
So when a horseman from the watery mead
(Skill'd in the manage of the bounding steed)
Drives four fair coursers, practised to obey,
To some great city through the public way;
Safe in his art, as side by side they run,
He shifts his seat, and vaults from one to one;
And now to this, and now to that he flies;
Admiring numbers follow with their eyes.

From ship to ship thus Ajax swiftly flew,
No less the wonder of the warring crew.
As furious, Hector thunder'd threats aloud,
And rush'd enraged before the Trojan crowd;
Then swift invades the ships, whose beaky prores
Lay rank'd contiguous on the bending shores;
So the strong eagle from his airy height,
Who marks the swans' or cranes' embodied flight,
Stoops down impetuous, while they light for food,
And, stooping, darkens with his wings the flood.
Jove leads him on with his almighty hand,
And breathes fierce spirits in his following band.
The warring nations meet, the battle roars,
Thick beats the combat on the sounding prores.
Thou wouldst have thought, so furious was their fire,
No force could tame them, and no toil could tire;
As if new vigour from new fights they won,
And the long battle was but then begun.
Greece, yet unconquer'd, kept alive the war,
Secure of death, confiding in despair:
Troy in proud hopes already view'd the main
Bright with the blaze, and red with heroes slain:
Like strength is felt from hope, and from despair,
And each contends, as his were all the war.

"Twas thou, bold Hector!
whose resistless hand
First seized a ship on that contested strand;
The same which dead Protesilaus bore,(242)
The first that touch'd the unhappy Trojan shore:
For this in arms the warring nations stood,
And bathed their generous breasts with mutual blood.
No room to poise the lance or bend the bow;
But hand to hand, and man to man, they grow:
Wounded, they wound; and seek each other's hearts
With falchions, axes, swords, and shorten'd darts.
The falchions ring, shields rattle, axes sound,
Swords flash in air, or glitter on the ground;
With streaming blood the slippery shores are dyed,
And slaughter'd heroes swell the dreadful tide.

Still raging, Hector with his ample hand
Grasps the high stern, and gives this loud command:

[Illustration: AJAX DEFENDING THE GREEK SHIPS. ]

AJAX DEFENDING THE GREEK SHIPS.


"Haste, bring the flames! that toil of ten long years
Is finished; and the day desired appears!
This happy day with acclamations greet,
Bright with destruction of yon hostile fleet.
The coward-counsels of a timorous throng
Of reverend dotards check'd our glory long:
Too long Jove lull'd us with lethargic charms,
But now in peals of thunder calls to arms:
In this great day he crowns our full desires,
Wakes all our force, and seconds all our fires. "

He spoke--the warriors at his fierce command
Pour a new deluge on the Grecian band.
Even Ajax paused, (so thick the javelins fly,)
Stepp'd back, and doubted or to live or die.
Yet, where the oars are placed, he stands to wait
What chief approaching dares attempt his fate:
Even to the last his naval charge defends,
Now shakes his spear, now lifts, and now protends;
Even yet, the Greeks with piercing shouts inspires,
Amidst attacks, and deaths, and darts, and fires.

"O friends! O heroes! names for ever dear,
Once sons of Mars, and thunderbolts of war!
Ah!