short a space the light of heaven to view, So short, alas! and fill'd with anguish too! Hear how his sorrows echo through the shore! I cannot ease them, but I must deplore; I go at least to bear a tender part, And mourn my loved-one with a mother's heart." She said, and left the caverns of the main, All bathed in tears; the melancholy train Attend her way. Wide-opening part the tides, While the long pomp the silver wave divides. Approaching now, they touch'd the Trojan land; Then, two by two, ascended up the strand. The immortal mother, standing close beside Her mournful offspring, to his sighs replied; Along the coast their mingled clamours ran, And thus the silver-footed dame began: "Why mourns my son? thy late preferr'd request The god has granted, and the Greeks distress'd: Why mourns my son? thy anguish let me share, Reveal the cause, and trust a parent's care." He, deeply groaning--"To this cureless grief, Not even the Thunderer's favour brings relief. Patroclus--Ah!--say, goddess, can I boast A pleasure now? revenge itself is lost; Patroclus, loved of all my martial train, Beyond mankind, beyond myself is slain! Lost are those arms the gods themselves bestow'd On Peleus; Hector bears the glorious load. Cursed be that day, when all the powers above Thy charms submitted to a mortal love: O hadst thou still, a sister of the main, Pursued the pleasures of the watery reign: And happier Peleus, less ambitious, led A mortal beauty to his equal bed! Ere the sad fruit of thy unhappy womb Had caused such sorrows past, and woes to come. For soon, alas! that wretched offspring slain, New woes, new sorrows, shall create again. 'Tis not in fate the alternate now to give; Patroclus dead, Achilles hates to live. Let me revenge it on proud Hector's heart, Let his last spirit smoke upon my dart; On these conditions will I breathe: till then, I blush to walk among the race of men." A fl