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12
PHILOCTETES.
Silent they gaze from Ilion's battlements—Yon sail to-day has brought her latest foe;
Silent they gaze upon the plain below,
And hear glad voices from the Grecian tents:
Not now Achilles, shouting from the trench,
Dismays them—but that friend of Hercules,
Armed with the Hydra's blood to fight for Greece,
Though once deported for his rueful stench;
The cruel shafts will soon be on the wing,
So brief is that beleaguered city's span;
The leech has gone to that ill-savoured man:
The foot of Philoctetes yearns to spring
Like young Protesilaus! Troy hath learned
Her fate,—the ten-years' exile hath returned!
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