Blackwood's Edinburgh magazine, Vol. 76, No. 467, September 1854

Name: Blackwood's Edinburgh magazine, Vol. 76, No. 467, September 1854
Author: Various

Various

England -- Periodicals; Scotland -- Periodicals

And fixed it in the ground.
            Up from the back the fell goat’s head
                Rose rough with swelling ire,
            And right and left long tongues were spread
                Of forky-flaming fire;
            But with immortal strength the steed
                Flaps his huge vans around,
            And straight the eager spires recede,
                And harmless lick the ground.
            Cowed lie the snakes, and with quick eye
            A tender place the knight did spy
                Where the neck joined the back;
            There with a fatal swoop he came,
            And through the fount of living flame
                He cuts with fierce attack.
            Down dropt the goat’s head in its gore,
            And with a sharp and brazen roar
                The writhing lion dies.
            The palsied snakes, with stiffened fang,
            Like lifeless leaves unconscious hang,
                And lose all strength to rise;
            And belching rivers of black gore
            Upon the clotted rocky floor
                The smoking carcass lies.


                                IX.

            A famous man was Glaucus’ son
                Then when Chimera died;
            In Lycian land like him was none
                In glory and in pride.
            At public feast beside the king
            He sate; him did the minstrel sing
                With various-woven lays;
            And old men in the halls were gay,
            And maidens smiled, and mothers grey,
            And eager boys would cease their play
                To sound the hero’s praise.
            The Xanthian burghers, wealthy men,
            Chose the best acres in the glen
                Beside the fattening river—
            Acres where best or corn would grow,
            Or vines with clustered purple glow,
            These, free from burden, they bestow
                On Glaucus’ son for ever.
            The Xanthian king, to Prœtus bound,
            For other dangers looks around,
                And finds, but finds in vain.
            ’Gainst the stout Solymi to fight[10]
            He set the brave Ephyrian knight,
                And hoped he might be slain;
            But from the stiff embrace of Mars
            He soon returned, and showed his scars,
                To glad the Xanthian plain.
            A Lycian army then he led
            Against the maids unhusbanded,
                Where surly Pontus roars.
            Before his spear the Amazon yields;
            The breastless host, with moonèd shields,
            Far o’er Thermodon’s famous fields
                He drove to Colchian shores.
            The Xanthian king despairs the strife—
            “Let Prœtus fight for Prœtus’ wife;
            I will not tempt the charmèd life
                Of valiant Glaucus’ son!”
            Nor more against the gods he strives,

Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.

Blackwood's Edinburgh magazine, Vol. 76, No. 467, September 1854

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