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Support the Monkey! Tell All your Friends and Teachers |
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Support the Monkey! Tell All your Friends and Teachers |
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Yet, mad with zeal, and blinded with our fate, We haul along the horse in solemn state; Then place the dire portent within the tow'r. Cassandra cried, and curs'd th' unhappy hour; Foretold our fate; but, by the god's decree, All heard, and none believ'd the prophecy. With branches we the fanes adorn, and waste, In jollity, the day ordain'd to be the last. Meantime the rapid heav'ns roll'd down the light, And on the shaded ocean rush'd the night; Our men, secure, nor guards nor sentries held, But easy sleep their weary limbs compell'd. The Grecians had embark'd their naval pow'rs From Tenedos, and sought our well-known shores, Safe under covert of the silent night, And guided by th' imperial galley's light; When Sinon, favor'd by the partial gods, Unlock'd the horse, and op'd his dark abodes; Restor'd to vital air our hidden foes, Who joyful from their long confinement rose. Tysander bold, and Sthenelus their guide, And dire Ulysses down the cable slide: Then Thoas, Athamas, and Pyrrhus haste; Nor was the Podalirian hero last, Nor injur'd Menelaus, nor the fam'd Epeus, who the fatal engine fram'd. A nameless crowd succeed; their forces join T' invade the town, oppress'd with sleep and wine. Those few they find awake first meet their fate; Then to their fellows they unbar the gate. "'T was in the dead of night, when sleep repairs Our bodies worn with toils, our minds with cares, When Hector's ghost before my sight appears: A bloody shroud he seem'd, and bath'd in tears; Such as he was, when, by Pelides slain, Thessalian coursers dragg'd him o'er the plain. Swoln were his feet, as when the thongs were thrust Thro' the bor'd holes; his body black with dust; Unlike that Hector who return'd from toils Of war, triumphant, in Aeacian spoils, Or him who made the fainting Greeks retire, And launch'd against their navy Phrygian fire. His hair and beard stood stiffen'd with his gore; And all the wounds he for his country bore |
