“To pass the rest; twelve, wanting one, he slew, My brethren, who their birth from Neleus drew; All youths of early promise, had they lived; By him they perish’d: I alone survived: The rest were easy conquest: but the fate Of Periclymenos is wondrous to relate: To him our common grandsire of the main Had given to change his form, and changed, resume again. Varied at pleasure, every shape he tried, And in all beasts Alcides still defied: Vanquish’d on earth, at length he soar’d above, Changed to the bird that bears the bolt of Jove. The new-dissembled eagle, now endued With beak and pounces, Hercules pursued, And cuff’d his manly cheeks, and tore his face, Then safe retired, and tower’d in empty space. Alcides bore not long his flying foe, But bending his inevitable bow, Reach’d him in air, suspended as he stood, And in his pinion fix’d the feather’d wood. Light was the wound; but in the sinew hung The point, and his disabled wing unstrung. He wheel’d in air, and stretch’d his vans in vain;