Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, PHILOCTETES (1), by CHARLES TENNYSON TURNER


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

PHILOCTETES (1), by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Silent they gaze from ilion's battlements
Last Line: Her fate, - the ten-years' exile hath returned!
Subject(s): Homer (10th Century B.c.); Poetry & Poets; Iliad; Odyssey


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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