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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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The fatal work inhuman Pyrrhus plies, And all his father sparkles in his eyes; Nor bars, nor fighting guards, his force sustain: The bars are broken, and the guards are slain. In rush the Greeks, and all the apartments fill; Those few defendants whom they find, they kill. Not with so fierce a rage the foaming flood Roars, when he finds his rapid course withstood; Bears down the dams with unresisted sway, And sweeps the cattle and the cots away. These eyes beheld him when he march'd between The brother kings: I saw th' unhappy queen, The hundred wives, and where old Priam stood, To stain his hallow'd altar with his brood. The fifty nuptial beds (such hopes had he, So large a promise, of a progeny), The posts, of plated gold, and hung with spoils, Fell the reward of the proud victor's toils. Where'er the raging fire had left a space, The Grecians enter and possess the place. "Perhaps you may of Priam's fate enquire. He, when he saw his regal town on fire, His ruin'd palace, and his ent'ring foes, On ev'ry side inevitable woes, In arms, disus'd, invests his limbs, decay'd, Like them, with age; a late and useless aid. His feeble shoulders scarce the weight sustain; Loaded, not arm'd, he creeps along with pain, Despairing of success, ambitious to be slain! Uncover'd but by heav'n, there stood in view An altar; near the hearth a laurel grew, Dodder'd with age, whose boughs encompass round The household gods, and shade the holy ground. Here Hecuba, with all her helpless train Of dames, for shelter sought, but sought in vain. Driv'n like a flock of doves along the sky, Their images they hug, and to their altars fly. The Queen, when she beheld her trembling lord, And hanging by his side a heavy sword, 'What rage,' she cried, 'has seiz'd my husband's mind? What arms are these, and to what use design'd? These times want other aids! Were Hector here, Ev'n Hector now in vain, like Priam, would appear. With us, one common shelter thou shalt find, |
