And now the stones descend in heavier showers.

As when high Jove his sharp artillery forms,

And opes his cloudy magazine of storms;

In winter's bleak un comfortable reign,

A snowy inundation hides the plain;

He stills the winds, and bids the skies to sleep;

Then pours the silent tempest thick and deep;

And first the mountain-tops are cover'd o'er,

Then the green fields, and then the sandy shore;

Bent with the weight, the nodding woods are seen,

And one bright waste hides all the works of men:

The circling seas, alone absorbing all,

Drink the dissolving fleeces as they fall:

So from each side increased the stony rain,

And the white ruin rises o'er the plain.

Thus godlike Hector and his troops contend

To force the ramparts, and the gates to rend:

Nor Troy could conquer, nor the Greeks would yield,

Till great Sarpedon tower'd amid the field;

For mighty Jove inspired with martial flame

His matchless son, and urged him on to fame.

In arms he shines, conspicuous from afar,

And bears aloft his ample shield in air;

Within whose orb the thick bull-hides were roll'd,

Ponderous with brass, and bound with ductile gold:

459

The Iliad of Homer