The Iliad of Homer

While thus aloft the hero's corse they bear,
Behind them rages all the storm of war:
Confusion, tumult, horror, o'er the throng
Of men, steeds, chariots, urged the rout along:

Less fierce the winds with rising flames conspire
To whelm some city under waves of fire;
Now sink in gloomy clouds the proud abodes,
Now crack the blazing temples of the gods;

The rumbling torrent through the ruin rolls,
And sheets of smoke mount heavy to the poles.
The heroes sweat beneath their honour'd load:
As when two mules, along the rugged road,

From the steep mountain with exerted strength
Drag some vast beam, or mast's unwieldy length;
Inly they groan, big drops of sweat distil,
The enormous timber lumbering down the hilclass="underline"

So these—Behind, the bulk of Ajax stands,
And breaks the torrent of the rushing bands.
Thus when a river swell'd with sudden rains
Spreads his broad waters o'er the level plains,

Some interposing hill the stream divides.
And breaks its force, and turns the winding tides.
Still close they follow, close the rear engage;
Aeneas storms, and Hector foams with rage:

While Greece a heavy, thick retreat maintains,
Wedged in one body, like a flight of cranes,
That shriek incessant, while the falcon, hung
High on poised pinions, threats their callow young.

So from the Trojan chiefs the Grecians fly,
Such the wild terror, and the mingled cry:
Within, without the trench, and all the way,
Strow'd in bright heaps, their arms and armour lay;

Such horror Jove impress'd! yet still proceeds
The work of death, and still the battle bleeds.