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In silence wrapt, in consternation drown'd,
Attend the stern reply. Then Phoenix rose;
(
Down his white beard a stream of sorrow flows;)
And while the fate of suffering Greece he mourn'd,
With accent weak these tender words return'd.
"Divine Achilles! wilt thou then retire,
And leave our hosts in blood, our fleets on fire?
If wrath so dreadful fill thy ruthless mind,
How shall thy friend, thy Phoenix, stay behind?
The royal Peleus, when from Pthia's coast
He sent thee early to the Achaian host;
Thy youth as then in sage debates unskill'd,
And new to perils of the direful field:
He bade me teach thee all the ways of war,
To shine in councils, and in camps to dare.
Never, ah, never let me leave thy side!
No time shall part us, and no fate divide,
Not though the god, that breathed my life, restore
The bloom I boasted, and the port I bore,
When Greece of old beheld my youthful flames
(Delightful Greece, the land of lovely dames),
My father faithless to my mother's arms,
Old as he was, adored a stranger's charms.
I tried what youth could do (at her desire)
To win the damsel, and prevent my sire.
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