Classic Poem

Silent they gaze from Ilion's battlements—
Yon sail to-day has brought her latest foe;
Silent they gaze upon the plain below,
And hear glad voices from the Grecian tents:
Not now Achilles, shouting from the trench,
Dismays them—but that friend of Hercules,
Arm'd with the Hydra's blood to fight for Greece,
Though once deported for his rueful stench;
The cruel shafts will soon be on the wing,
So brief is that beleaguer'd city's span;
The leech has gone to that ill-savour'd man:
The foot of Philoctetes yearns to spring
Like young Protesilaus! Troy hath learn'd
Her fate,—the ten-years' exile hath return'd!