all that once were dear, Rush to her thought, and force a tender tear, O'er her fair face a snowy veil she threw, And, softly sighing, from the loom withdrew. Her handmaids, Clymene and Ćthra, wait Her silent footsteps to the Scaean gate. There sat the seniors of the Trojan race: (Old Priam's chiefs, and most in Priam's grace,) The king the first; Thymoetes at his side; Lampus and Clytius, long in council tried; Panthus, and Hicetaon, once the strong; And next, the wisest of the reverend throng, Antenor grave, and sage Ucalegon, Lean'd on the walls and bask'd before the sun: Chiefs, who no more in bloody fights engage, But wise through time, and narrative with age, In summer days, like grasshoppers rejoice, A bloodless race, that send a feeble voice. These, when the Spartan queen approach'd the tower, In secret own'd resistless beauty's power: They cried, "No wonder such celestial charms(113) For nine long years have set the world in arms; What winning graces! what majestic mien! She moves a goddess, and she looks a queen! Yet hence, O Heaven, convey that fatal face, And from destruction save the Trojan race." The good old Priam welcomed her, and cried, "Approach, my child, and grace thy father's side. See on the plain thy Grecian spouse appears, The friends and kindred of thy former years. No crime of thine our present sufferings draws, Not thou, but Heaven's disposing will, the cause The gods these armies and this force employ, The hostile gods conspire the fate of Troy. But lift thy eyes, and say, what Greek is he (Far as from hence these aged orbs can see) Around whose brow such martial graces shine, So tall, so awful, and almost divine! Though some of larger stature tread the green, None match his grandeur and exalted mien: He seems a monarch, and his country's pride." Thus ceased the king, and thus the fair replied: "Before thy presence, father, I appear, With conscious s