For now upon our towers the warrior sons Of Troy press hard--yea, haply will they tear The long walls down, and burn the ships with fire, And so the souls that long for home-return Shall win it never; nay, ourselves shall fall Before our due time, and shall lie in graves In Troyland, far from children and from wives." All as one man down from the ship they leapt; For trembling seized on all for that grim sight-- On all save aweless Neoptolemus Whose might was like his father's: lust of war Swept o'er him. To Odysseus' tent in haste They sped, for close it lay to where the ship Touched land. About its walls was hung great store Of change of armour, of wise Odysseus some, And rescued some from gallant comrades slain. Then did the brave man put on goodly arms; But they in whose breasts faintlier beat their hearts Must don the worser. Odysseus stood arrayed In those which came with him from Ithaca: To Diomede he gave fair battle-gear Stripped in time past from mighty Socus slain. But in his father's arms Achilles' son Clad him and lo, he seemed Achilles' self! Light on his limbs and lapping close they lay-- So cunning was Hephaestus' workmanship-- Which for another had been a giant's arms. The massive helmet cumbered not his brows; Yea, the great Pelian spear-shaft burdened not His hand, but lightly swung he up on high The heavy and tall lance thirsting still for blood. Of many Argives which beheld him then Might none draw nigh to him, how fain soe'er, So fast were they in that grim grapple locked Of the wild war that raged all down the wall. But as when shipmen, under a desolate isle Mid the wide sea by stress of weather bound, Chafe, while afar from men the adverse blasts Prison them many a day; they pace the deck With sinking hearts, while scantier grows their store Of food; they weary till a fair wind sings; So joyed the Achaean host, which theretofore Were heavy of heart, when Neoptolemus came, Joyed in the hope of breathing-space from toil. Then like the aweless lion's flashed his eyes, Which mid the mountains leaps in furious mood To meet the hunters that draw nigh his cave, Thinking to steal his cubs, there left alone In a dark-shadowed glen but from a height The beast hath spied, and on the spoilers leaps With grim jaws terribly roaring; even so That glorious child of Aeacus' aweless son Against the Trojan warriors burned in wrath. Thither his eagle-swoop descended first Where loudest from the plain uproared the fight, There weakest, he divined, must be the wall, The battlements lowest, since the surge of foes Brake heaviest there. Charged at his side the rest Breathing the battle-spirit. There they found Eurypylus mighty of heart and all his men Scaling a tower, exultant in the hope Of tearing down the walls, of slaughtering The Argives in one holocaust. No mind The Gods had to accomplish their desire!