Classic Poem

They fly, bewildered, from the bloody fight,
Toward the mountain scarp that guards their den,
And madly swerve in mortal terror, when
They sniff the carnage of the tainted night:
Hydra and dragon writhe beneath their flight
Headlong through thicket, gorge, and torrent—then,
Far off, Olympus looms upon their ken,
And Ossa, and black Pelion's rugged height.

Often a straggler from the frenzied rout
Rears suddenly—wild-eyed—then turns about
And with one bound rejoins his kindred throng,
For—clear against the brilliant moon—he sees
A spectral horror flung the peaks along
—The monstrous shadowy form of Hercules.