[3]

FIRST STAVE

THE DEATH OF ACHILLES

Where Simoeis and Xanthos, holy streams,

Flow brimming on the level, and chance gleams

Betray far Ida through a rended cloud

And hint the awful home of Zeus, whose shroud

The thunder is—'twixt Ida and the main

Behold gray Ilios, Priam's fee, the plain

About her like a carpet; from whose height

The watchman, ten years watching, every night

Counteth the beacon fires and sees no less

Their number as the years wax and duress

Of hunger thins the townsmen day by day—

More than the Greeks kill plague and famine slay.

Here in their wind-swept city, ten long years

Beset and in this tenth in blood and tears

And havocry to fall, old Priam's sons

[4]

Guard still their gods, their wives and little ones,

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