Classic Poem

Hector beheld and trembled: naught he dared
To wait, but left the gates and shuddering flew.
Achilleus with swift feet behind him fared.
As mountain hawk, most fleet of feathered crew,
A trembling dove doth eagerly pursue;
Swerving she flutters; he, intent to seize,
With savage scream close hounds her thro the blue; —
So keenly he swept onward; Hector flees
Beneath his own Troy wall and plies his limber knees.

All past the watch-tower and the fig-tree tall
Along the chariot road at speed they fare,
Still swerving outward from the city's wall;
Then reach the two fair-flowing streamlets, where
Scamander's twofold source breaks forth to air.
One flows in a warm tide and steam doth go
Up from it, as a blazing fire were there;
But the other runs in summer's midmost glow
Cold as the frozen hail, or ice or chilly snow.

Thereby great troughs and meet for washing stand,
Beautiful, stony, where their robes of pride
Troy's wives and daughters washt ere to the land
The foemen came, in happy peaceful tide.
Flying and following, these they ran beside,
He good that flies, he better that pursues;
For no fat victim 't was, nor bullock's hide,
Such meed as men for conquering runners choose,
But Hector's life the prize they ran to win or lose.

Look how prize-bearing horses, hard of hoof,
Circle about the goal with eager bound,
And a great guerdon stands, not far aloof,
Tripod or woman, at the funeral mound
Of some dead chief; so thrice they circled round
King Priam's town, their swift feet winged for flight:
While all the gods Olympos' summit crowned,
Looking from high to see the wondrous sight.