Classic Poem

1.

From Ida's peak high Jove beheld
The tumults of the battle-field,
The fortune of the fight--
He marked, where by the ocean-flood
Stout Hector with his Trojans stood,
And mingled in the strife of blood
Achaia's stalwart might:
He saw--and turn'd his sunbright eyes
Where Thracia's snow-capped mountains rise
Above her pastures fair:
Where Mysians feared in battle-fray,
With far-famed Hippemolgians stray,
A race remote from care,
Unstained by fraud, unstained by blood,
The milk of mares their simple food.
Thither his sight the God inclines,
Nor turns to view the shifting lines
Commix'd in fight afar:
He deemed not, he, that heavenly might
Would swell the bands of either fight,
When he forbade the war.


2.

Not so the Monarch of the Deep:
On Samothracia's topmast steep
The great Earth-shaker stood,
Whose cloudy summit viewed afar
The crowded tents, the mingling war,
The navy dancing on the tide,
The leaguered town, the hills of Ide,
And all the scene of blood.
There stood he, and with grief surveyed
His Greeks by adverse force outweighed:
He bann'd the Thunderer's partial will,
And hastened down the craggy hill.


3.

Down the steep mountain-slope he sped,
The mountain rocked beneath his tread,
And trembling wood and echoing cave
Sign of immortal presence gave.
Three strides athwart the plain he took,
Three times the plain beneath him shook;
The fourth reached Ægæ's watery strand,
Where, far beneath the green sea-foam,
Was built the monarch's palace-home,
Distinct with golden spire and dome,
And doom'd for aye to stand.


4.

He enters: to the car he reins
His brass-hoofed steeds, whose golden manes
A stream of glory cast:
His golden lash he forward bends,
Arrayed in gold the car ascends;
And swifter than the blast,
Across th' expanse of ocean wide,
Untouched by waves, it passed:
The waters of the glassy tide
Joyful before its course divide,
Nor round the axle press:
Around its wheels the dolphins play,
Attend the chariot on its way,
And their great Lord confess.