THERE IS NO POETRY BUT HOMER'S ILIADS.

MUSE'S LOOKING-GLASS.

FIRST BOOK OF HOMER'S ILIAD.

SING, Maid of Heaven! Achilles' wrath, the fount
Of woe to Greece, and sufferings past account,
That wrath which downward swept1 to Death's strong
hold

The warrior-spirits of her brave and bold,
Leaving their limbs unsepulchred and bare,
For dogs to rend, and every fowl of air 3——

Doom'd from that hour when first, in maddening mood,
Uprose reviling and asunder stood

The King of men, and Peleus' heavenly son :-
Thus willed high Jove, and thus his will was done.
Who then the god that fired them till they strove?—
What power? the son of Leto and of Jove.-
Wroth with their sovereign he, thro' each thinned rank,
Pour'd a loathed plague: in death the people sank5.
For their proud king on Chryses' hallowed head
Heaped foul dishonour, when the priest had sped
To the swift war-ships of the Greeks, to free
His daughter from her lone captivity;
Boundless the gifts he bare, and in his hand
Apollo's chaplets and his golden wand ;

B

To all he breath'd his suppliant prayer, but most
To Atreus' sons—twain captains of the host.
"Princes and mailed warriors! may the powers,
Who dwell for aye in yon Olympian bowers,
Accord ye Priam's rampired town to sack,
And tend your navy on its homeward track,
-Yield but my child, this rich requital take,
And dread the Jove-born Archer's wrath to wake."
Then rose glad shouts from all the host of Greece7,
The priest to homage, and the maid release,—

All save the king: he bids the seer avaunt,

With rude dismissal and unholy taunt.

"Hence, Grey-beard! what 'mid guarded fleets dost thou ?

Hence no return-away-nor tarry now,—

Lest, should I light upon thy form again,

Vain were that wand, thy god's own chaplets vain :
But, mark me, ne'er will I the slave unthrall,
Ere in fair Argos, in my kingly hall,-

Far from her father and dear father-land,-
Wrecked be her bloom by Time's invading hand,
Drudge of the loom-weak handmaid of my will :—
Hence then, nor chafe me, lest thou perish still.”
Trembling the old man heard his stern command,
Then slow-departing pac'd the trending strand
In silent agony,-while from the sea
Roll'd in the tumbling billows lustily;

Then, a far distance gain'd, he pour'd his prayer
To him, the king, whom bright-tress'd Leto bare.