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(From Atalanta in Calydon)
THESE having halted bade blow horns, and rode | |
| Through woods and waste lands cleft by stormy streams, | |
| Past yew-trees and the heavy hair of pines, | |
| And where the dew is thickest under oaks, | |
| This way and that; but questing up and down | 5 |
| They saw no trail nor scented; and one said, | |
| Plexippus, Help, or help not, Artemis, | |
| And we will flay thy boarskin with male hands; | |
| But, saying, he ceased and said not that he would, | |
| Seeing where the green ooze of a sun-struck marsh | 10 |
| Shook with a thousand reeds untunable, | |
| And in their moist and multitudinous flower | |
| Slept no soft sleep, with violent visions fed, | |
| The blind bulk of the immeasurable beast. | |
| And, seeing, he shuddered with sharp lust of praise | 15 |
| Through all his limbs, and launched a double dart, | |
| And missed; for much desire divided him, | |
| Too hot of spirit and feebler than his will, | |
| That his hand failed, though fervent; and the shaft, | |
| Sundering the rushes, in a tamarisk stem | 20 |
| Shook, and stuck fast; then all abode save one, | |
| The Arcadian Atalanta; from her side | |
| Sprang her hounds, laboring at the leash, and slipped, | |
| And plashed ear-deep with plunging feet; but she, | |
| Saying, Speed it as I send it for thy sake, | 25 |
| Goddess, drew bow and loosed; the sudden string | |
| Rang, and sprang inward, and the waterish air | |
| Hissed, and the moist plumes of the songless reeds | |
| Moved as a wave which the wind moves no more. | |
| But the boar heaved half out of ooze and slime | 30 |
| His tense flank trembling round the barbéd wound, | |
| Hateful; and fiery with invasive eyes | |
| And bristling with intolerable hair | |
| Plunged, and the hounds clung, and green flowers and white | |
| Reddened and broke all round them where they came. | 35 |
| And charging with sheer tusk he drove, and smote | |
| Hyleus; and sharp death caught his sudden soul, | |
| And violent sleep shed night upon his eyes. | |
| Then Peleus, with strong strain of hand and heart, | |
| Shot; but the sidelong arrow slid, and slew | 40 |
| His comrade born and loving countryman, | |
| Under the left arm smitten, as he no less | |
| Poised a like arrow; and bright blood break afoam, | |
| And falling, and weighed back by clamorous arms, | |
| Sharp rang the dead limbs of Eurytion. | 45 |
| Then one shot happier, the Cadmean seer, | |
| Amphiaraus; for his sacred shaft | |
| Pierced the red circlet of one ravening eye | |
| Beneath the brute brows of the sanguine boar, | |
| Now bloodier from one slain; but he so galled | 50 |
| Sprang straight, and rearing cried no lesser cry | |
| Than thunder and the roar of wintering streams | |
| That mix their own foam with the yellower sea; | |
| And as a tower that falls by fire in fight | |
| With ruin of walls and all its archery, | 55 |
| And breaks the iron flower of war beneath, | |
| Crushing charred limbs and molten arms of men; | |
| So through crushed branches and the reddening brake | |
| Clamored and crashed the fervor of his feet, | |
| And trampled, springing sideways from the tusk, | 60 |
| Too tardy a moving mould of heavy strength, | |
| Ancæus; and as flakes of weak-winged snow | |
| Break, all the hard thews of his heaving limbs | |
| Broke, and rent flesh fell every way, and blood | |
| Flew, and fierce fragments of no more a man. | 65 |
| Then all the heroes drew sharp breath, and gazed, | |
| And smote not; but Meleager, but thy son, | |
| Right in the wild way of the coming curse | |
| Rock-rooted, fair with fierce and fastened lips, | |
| Clear eyes, and springing muscle and shortening limb,— | 70 |
| With chin aslant indrawn to a tightening throat, | |
| Grave, and with gathered sinews, like a god,— | |
| Aimed on the left side his well-handled spear | |
| Grasped where the ash was knottiest hewn, and smote, | |
| And with no missile wound, the monstrous boar | 75 |
| Right in the hairiest hollow of his hide | |
| Under the last rib, sheer through bulk and bone, | |
| Deep in; and deeply smitten, and to death, | |
| The heavy horror with his hanging shafts | |
| Leapt, and fell furiously, and from raging lips | 80 |
| Foamed out the latest wrath of all his life. | |
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