the long night extends her sable reign, Around Patroclus mourn'd the Grecian train. Stern in superior grief Pelides stood; Those slaughtering arms, so used to bathe in blood, Now clasp his clay-cold limbs: then gushing start The tears, and sighs burst from his swelling heart. The lion thus, with dreadful anguish stung, Roars through the desert, and demands his young; When the grim savage, to his rifled den Too late returning, snuffs the track of men, And o'er the vales and o'er the forest bounds; His clamorous grief the bellowing wood resounds. So grieves Achilles; and, impetuous, vents To all his Myrmidons his loud laments. "In what vain promise, gods! did I engage, When to console Menoetius' feeble age, I vowed his much-loved offspring to restore, Charged with rich spoils, to fair Opuntia's shore?(252) But mighty Jove cuts short, with just disdain, The long, long views of poor designing man! One fate the warrior and the friend shall strike, And Troy's black sands must drink our blood alike: Me too a wretched mother shall deplore, An aged father never see me more! Yet, my Patroclus! yet a space I stay, Then swift pursue thee on the darksome way. Ere thy dear relics in the grave are laid, Shall Hector's head be offer'd to thy shade; That, with his arms, shall hang before thy shrine; And twelve, the noblest of the Trojan line, Sacred to vengeance, by this hand expire; Their lives effused around thy flaming pyre. Thus let me lie till then! thus, closely press'd, Bathe thy cold face, and sob upon thy breast! While Trojan captives here thy mourners stay, Weep all the night and murmur all the day: Spoils of my arms, and thine; when, wasting wide, Our swords kept time, and conquer'd side by side." He spoke, and bade the sad attendants round Cleanse the pale corse, and wash each honour'd wound. A massy caldron of stupendous frame They brought, and placed it o'er the rising flame: Then he