XIX.
But even then the tidings sore were borne
To great Achilles, of Patroclus dead,
And all his goodly raiment hath he torn,
And cast the dust upon his golden head,
And many a tear and bitter did he shed.
Ay; there by his own sword had he been slain,
But swift his Goddess-mother, Thetis, sped
Forth with her lovely sea-nymphs from the main.
XX.
For, as a mother when her young child calls
Hearkens to that, and hath no other care:
So Thetis, from her green and windless halls
Rose, at the first word of Achilles’ prayer,
To comfort him, and promise gifts of fair
New armour wrought by an immortal hand;
Then like a silver cloud she scaled the air,
Where bright the dwellings of Olympus stand.
XXI.
But, as a beacon from a ’leaguer’d town
Within a sea-girt isle, leaps suddenly,
A cloud by day; but when the sun goes down,
The tongues of fire flash out, and soar on high,
To summon warlike men that dwell thereby
And bid them bring a rescue over-seas,—
So now Athene sent a flame to fly
From brow and temples of Aeacides.
XXII.
Then all unarm’d he sped, and through the throng,
He pass’d to the dyke’s edge, beyond the wall,
Nor leap’d the ranks of fighting men among,
But shouted clearer than the clarion’s call
When foes on a beleaguer’d city fall.
Three times he cried, and terror fell on these
That heard him; and the Trojans, one and all,
Fled from that shouting of Aeacides.
XXIII.
Backward the Trojans reel’d in headlong flight,
Chariots and men, and left their bravest slain;
And the sun fell; but Troy through all the night
Watch’d by her fires upon the Ilian plain,
For Hector did the sacred walls disdain
Of Ilios; nor knew that he should stand
Ere night return’d, and burial crave in vain,
Unarm’d, forsaken, at Achilles’ hand.