With delicate hues; but like the gray hill-grass

Which the wind sweepeth, till in waves of light

It tideth backwards—so all gray or white

Showed they, as sudden surges moved them cloak

Their heads, or bare their faces. And none spoke

Among them, for there stood not woman there

But mourned her dead, or sensed not in the air

Her pendent doom of death, or worse than death.

Frail as flowers were their faces, and all breath

Came short and quick, as on this dreadful show

Staring, they pondered it done far below

As on a stage where the thin players seem

Unkith to them who watch, the stuff of dream.

Nor else about the plain showed living thing

Save high in the blue where sailed on outspread wing

A vulture bird intent, with mighty span

Of pinion.

In the hush spake the dead man,

Hollow-voiced, terrible: "Ye tribes of Troy,

Here stand I out for death, and ye for joy

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