Where late their troops triumphant bore the fight,

Now chased, and trembling in ignoble flight:

(

These with a gathered mist Saturnia shrouds,

And rolls behind the rout a heap of clouds:)

Part plunge into the stream: old Xanthus roars,

The flashing billows beat the whiten'd shores:

With cries promiscuous all the banks resound,

And here, and there, in eddies whirling round,

The flouncing steeds and shrieking warriors drown'd.

As the scorch'd locusts from their fields retire,

While fast behind them runs the blaze of fire;

Driven from the land before the smoky cloud,

The clustering legions rush into the flood:

So, plunged in Xanthus by Achilles' force,

Roars the resounding surge with men and horse.

His bloody lance the hero casts aside,

(

Which spreading tamarisks on the margin hide,)

Then, like a god, the rapid billows braves,

Arm'd with his sword, high brandish'd o'er the waves:

Now down he plunges, now he whirls it round,

Deep groan'd the waters with the dying sound;

Repeated wounds the reddening river dyed,

And the warm purple circled on the tide.

Swift through the foamy flood the Trojans fly,

And close in rocks or winding caverns lie:

So the huge dolphin tempesting the main,

740

The Iliad of Homer