Entering the court, with shouts the skies they rend;
And flaming firebrands to the roofs ascend.
Himself, among the foremost, deals his blows,
And with his axe repeated strokes bestows
On the strong doors; then all their shoulders ply,
Till from the posts the brazen hinges fly.
He hews apace: the double bars at length
Yield to his axe, and unresisted strength.
A mighty breach is made: the rooms concealed
Appear, and all the palace is revealed―
The halls of audience, and of public state,
And where the lonely queen in secret sate.
Armed soldiers now by trembling maids are seen,
With not a door, and scarce a space, between.
The house is filled with loud laments and cries,
And shrieks of women rend the vaulted skies.
The fearful matrons run from place to place,
And kiss the thresholds, and the posts embrace.
The fatal work inhuman Pyrrhus plies,
And all his father sparkles in his eyes.
Nor bars, nor fighting guards, his force sustain :
The bars are broken, and the guards are slain.
In rush the Greeks, and all the apartments fill;
Those few defendants whom they find, they kill.
Not with so fierce a rage the foaming flood
Roars, when he finds his rapid course withstood;
Bears down the dams with unresisted sway,
And sweeps the cattle and the cots away.
These eyes beheld him, when he marched between
The brother kings: I saw the unhappy queen,
The hundred wives, and where old Priam stood,
To stain his hallowed altar with his blood.
The fifty nuptial beds, (such hopes had he,
So large a promise, of a progeny,)
The posts of plated gold, and hung with spoils,
Fell the reward of the proud victor's toils.
Where'er the raging fire had left a space,
The Grecians enter, and possess the place.
Perhaps you may of Priam's fate inquire.
He-when he saw his regal town on fire,
His ruined palace, and his entering foes,
On every side inevitable woes-
In arms disused, invests his limbs, decayed,
Like them, with age; a late and useless aid.
His feeble shoulders scarce the weight sustain;
Loaded, not armed, he creeps along with pain,
Despairing of success, ambitious to be slain!
Uncovered but by heaven, there stood in view
An altar near the hearth a laurel grew,
Dodder'd with age, whose boughs encompass round
The household gods, and shade the holy ground.
Here Hecuba, with all her helpless train
Of dames, for shelter sought, but sought in vain.
Driven like a flock of doves along the sky,
Their images they hug, and to their altars fly.
The queen, when she beheld her trembling lord,
And hanging by his side a heavy sword,
"What rage," she cried, "has seized my husband's mind?
What arms are these, and to what use designed?
These times want other aids! Were Hector here,
Even Hector now in vain, like Priam, would appear.
With us, one common shelter thou shalt find,
Or in one common fate with us be joined."
She said, and with a last salute embraced
The poor old man, and by the laurel placed.
Behold! Polites, one of Priam's sons,
Pursued by Pyrrhus, there for safety runs.
Through swords and foes, amazed and hurt, he flies
Through empty courts, and open galleries.
Him Pyrrhus, urging with his lance, pursues,
And often reaches, and his thrusts renews.
The youth transfixed, with lamentable cries,
Expires before his wretched parents' eyes:
Whom gasping at his feet when Priam saw,
The fear of death gave place to nature's law;
And, shaking more with anger than with age,
"The gods," said he, "requite thy brutal rage!
As sure they will, barbarian, sure they must,
If there be gods in heaven, and gods be just-
Who tak'st in wrongs an insolent delight;
With a son's death to infect a father's sight.
Not he, whom thou and lying fame conspire
To call thee his-not he, thy vaunted sire,
Thus used my wretched age: the gods he feared,
The laws of nature and of nations heard.
He cheered my sorrows, and, for sums of gold,
The bloodless carcase of my Hector sold;
Pitied the woes a parent underwent,
And sent me back in safety from his tent."
This said, his feeble hand a javelin threw,
Which, fluttering, seemed to loiter as it flew:
Just, and but barely, to the mark it held,
And faintly tinkled on the brazen shield.
Then Pyrrhus thus: "Go thou from me to fate, And to my father my foul deeds relate.
Now die!" With that he dragged the trembling sire,
Sliddering through clottered blood and holy mire,
(The mingled paste his murdered son had made,)
Hauled from beneath the violated shade,
And on the sacred pile the royal victim laid.
His right hand held his bloody faulchion bare,
His left he twisted in his hoary hair;
Then, with a speeding thrust, his heart he found;
The lukewarm blood came rushing through the
And sanguine streams distained the sacred gound. Thus Priam fell, and shared one common fate With Troy in ashes, and his ruined state
He, who the sceptre of all Asia swayed,
Whom monarchs like domestic slaves obeyed.
On the bleak shore now lies the abandoned king,
A headless carcase, and a nameless thing.
Then, not before, I felt my cruddled blood
Congeal with fear, my hair with horror stood :
My father's image filled my pious mind,
Lest equal years might equal fortune find.
Again I thought on my forsaken wife,
And trembled for my son's abandoned life.
I looked about, but found myself alone,
Deserted at my need! My friends were gone.
Some spent with toil, some with despair oppressed,
Leaped headlong from the heights; the flames con-
sumed the rest.
Thus wandering in my way without a guide,
The graceless Helen in the porch I spied
Of Vesta's temple; there she lurked alone;
Muffled she sate, and, what she could, unknown:
But, by the flames that cast their blaze around,
That common bane of Greece and Troy I found.
For Ilium burnt, she dreads the Trojan sword;
More dreads the vengeance of her injured lord;
Even by those gods, who refuged her, abhorred.
Trembling with rage, the strumpet I regard,
Resolved to give her guilt the due reward.
"Shall she triumphant sail before the wind,
And leave in flames unhappy Troy behind?
Shall she her kingdom and her friends review,
In state attended with a captive crew,
While unrevenged the good old Priam falls,
And Grecian fires consume the Trojan walls?
For this the Phrygian fields and Xanthian flood
Were swelled with bodies, and were drunk with blood?
"Tis true, a soldier can small honour gain,
And boast no conquest, from a woman slain:
Yet shall the fact not pass without applause,
Of vengeance taken in so just a cause.
The punished crime shall set my soul at ease,
And murmuring manes of my friends appease."
Thus while I rave, a gleam of pleasing light
Spread o'er the place; and, shining heavenly bright,
My mother stood revealed before my sight-
Never so radiant did her eyes appear;
Not her own star confessed a light so clear-
Great in her charms, as when on gods above
She looks, and breathes herself into their love.
She held my hand, the destined blow to break;
Then from her rosy lips began to speak :-
My son! from whence this madness, this neglect
Of my commands, and those whom I protect?
Why this unmanly rage? Recal to mind
Whom you forsake, what pledges leave behind.
Look if your helpless father yet survive,
Or if Ascanius or Creüsa live.
Around your house the greedy Grecians err;
And these had perished in the nightly war,
But for my presence and protecting care.
Not Helen's face, nor Paris, was in fault;
But by the gods was this destruction brought.
Now cast your eyes around, while I dissolve
The mists and films that mortal eyes involve,
Purge from your sight the dross, and make you see
The shape of each avenging deity.
Enlightened thus, my just commands fulfil,
Nor fear obedience to your mother's will.
Where yon disordered heap of ruin lies,
Stones rent from stones,-where clouds of dust
Amid that smother, Neptune holds his place,
Below the wall's foundation drives his mace,
And heaves the building from the solid base.
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