There was an outcast in the Argive host,
One Philoctetes; whom Odysseus’ wile,
(For, save he help’d, the Leaguer all was lost,)
Drew from his lair within the Lemnian isle.
But him the people, as a leper vile,
Hated, and drave to a lone hut afar,
For wounded sore was he, and many a while
His cries would wake the host foredone with war.
XLIX.
Now Philoctetes was an archer wight;
But in his quiver had he little store
Of arrows tipp’d with bronze, and feather’d bright;
Nay, his were blue with mould, and fretted o’er
With many a spell Melampus wrought of yore,
Singing above his task a song of bane;
And they were venom’d with the Centaur’s gore,
And tipp’d with bones of men a long while slain.
L.
This wretch for very pain might seldom sleep,
And that night slept not: in the moaning blast
He deem’d the dead about his hut did creep,
And silently he rose, and round him cast
His raiment foul, and from the door he pass’d,
And peer’d into the night, and soothly heard
A whisper’d voice; then gripp’d his arrows fast
And strung his bow, and cried a bitter word:
LI.
“Art thou a gibbering ghost with war outworn,
And thy faint life in Hades not begun?
Art thou a man that holdst my grief in scorn,
And yet dost live, and look upon the sun?
If man,—methinks thy pleasant days are done,
And thou shalt writhe in torment worse than mine;
If ghost,—new pain in Hades hast thou won,
And there with double woe shalt surely pine.”
LII.
He spake, and drew the string, and sent a shaft
At venture through the midnight and the snow,
A little while he listen’d, then he laugh’d
Within himself, a dreadful laugh and low;
For over well the answer did he know
That midnight gave his message, the sharp cry
And armour rattling on a fallen foe
That now was learning what it is to die.
LIII.