Collected Poems 19071922 Author:John Erskine Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: PENTHESILEIA So Hector fell, and Troy without defence Looked for Achilles knocking at the gate; There was no other heart to brave him thence, The stubborn ... more »walls at last must let in fate. But he, delaying, held away their doom, For on a bleak hill far across the plain, Beside his lost friend in the new-built tomb, Whom Hector slew and for that death was slain, He grieved, and clasped his knees, and bowed his head, To hear no sound though night and day went Mourning the friendship and the glory sped, And after Hector, his own turn to die; Beholding now the end of mortal things, He would not lift his armor from the ground, He would not hear the pleading of the kings To storm the city and be homeward bound. Yet he would come at last, Troy knew, and woke To daily respite and to daily fear, And wild devices, thin as drifting smoke, Crossed their dark hour with unconvincing cheer; So long he tarried when he might have come, What if the subtle-planning gods intended Another shift in the apparent doom, Another Hector, Troy once more defended? Two only undeluded met the woes Long fated, and the approaching night of dread; Andromache, who when the wailing rose Was weaving in her house a purple web, And she had called for water on the fire, That Hector, soon returning after toil, Might wash away the battle and the mire, And cool the wounds with delicate-scented oil; Even then she heard the sudden cry of death; She said, "It was his mother's voice I heard," And hurried to the walls with choking breath, To the pale throng that, pitifully stirred, Made room, with boding silence on their lips, And there she saw the chariot on the plain, Swift horses dragging Hector to the ships; She had seen this, she could not hope ...« less