The sire of Cycnus, monarch of the main, Meantime laments his son in battle slain, And vows the victor’s death; nor vows in vain. For nine long years the smother’d pain he bore: (Achilles was not ripe for fate before:) Then when he saw the promised hour was near, He thus bespoke the god that guides the year: “Immortal offspring of my brother Jove, My brightest nephew, and whom best I love, Whose hands were join’d with mine, to raise the wall Of tottering Troy, now nodding to her fall, Dost thou not mourn our power employ’d in vain, And the defenders of our city slain? To pass the rest, could noble Hector lie Unpitied, dragg’d around his native Troy? And yet the murderer lives: himself by far A greater plague than all the wasteful war: He lives, the proud Pelides lives, to boast Our town destroy’d, our common labour lost. Oh, could I meet him! but I wish too late: To prove my trident is not in his fate! But let him try (for that’s allow’d) thy dart, And pierce his only penetrable part.”