The ten years labor and the fall of Troy?

When all her fields and rivers ran with blood,

And fair Sigeum drank the vital flood;

When raging Hector, with his valiant train,

Mid Argos’ fleet bade fire and slaughter reign.

Ev’n mother Ida pour’d her pitchy store

’Gainst the tall barks, along the Trojan shore.

Here, dauntless Ajax fought thro’ fields of blood;

There, Troy’s first honor swell’d the purple flood,

Both fierce in war; their pond’rous armour rung,

While vivid lightning on their falchions hung.

With flaming brands here Hector strove to burn

Their lofty fleet, and stop the Greeks’ return;

There, fiercer Ajax rais’d his sword on high,

Hurl’d back their brands, and bade the Trojans fly.

Next, fam’d Pelides flying Hector slew,

And round Troy’s walls in cruel triumph drew.

Sad will of Fate! Pelides press’d the ground,

By Paris’ hand: his doom great Ajax found,

In that sly chief, by whom, at midnight slain,

Here Dolon lay, there Rhesus press’d the plain.

He too from Troy their great Palladium bore,

And drove the Cicons from their native shore:

’Twas his to pass along the roaring waves,

Where, bound with dogs, the fatal Scylla raves;

Where the rough seas of loud Charybdis swell;

The land of Cyclops, and the shades of Hell.—

Here Atreus’ son is seen, the next in place,

The pride of Greece, and honor of his race,

He taught the flames o’er Ilium’s walls to rise,

Climb the high tow’rs and seek the distant skies,

But he alas! a mournful tribute gave

To falling Troy, in Asia’s fatal wave.

Trust not too far the smile that fortune lends,

Nor blindly follow wheresoe’er she tends:

He, who, elate, some giddy height would gain;

Thrown from that height shall oft lament in vain.

So, flush’d with spoils, from Troy the Grecian bands

Launch’d their tall barks, and sought their native lands:

Now gentle breezes bear them on their way,

And guardian sea nymphs round their vessels play.

When (Fate so will’d, or so some baleful star,)

Waves war with winds, and spurn old ocean’s bar:

Now floods on floods in sounding contest rise,

Toss their tall heads, and threat the lofty skies.

Earth echoes back the sound; the Grecians tost,

So late victorious, now forever lost,

Sink in the whelming flood, along the shores,

Where ’gainst Caphareus sounding ocean pours.

Wide o’er the waves the floating relicks fly,

Here, shatter’d ships, there, Trojan treasures lie.—

Here, mid th’ Elysian fields, a martial band,

The pride of Rome, in equal honor stand.

Here brave Horatius, and the Fabian name;

And great Camillus, crown’d with deathless fame.

With these the Decii, and that youth, who gave

His life, devoted to the gaping grave,

His country’s freedom and her name to save.

Here too is he, who bore the raging flame,