I feel thee palpable, round this worn form
Clinging in last embrace.”
Immortal as Homer is the prayer of his Ajax to die, if die he must, in the light. Contrast with this the modus moriendi of Pompey the Great, as pictured in Corneille:—
“D’un des pans de sa robe it couvre son visage,
A son mauvais dentin en aveugle obéit,
Et dédaigne de voir le ciel qui le trahit.”
So with the Greek wife in Landor’s Hellenics, who resists the bidding to fall not on her knees, but to look up:—
“The hand
That is to slay me, best may slay me thus.
I dare no longer see the light of heaven.”[35]