In glorious action, is the task of war." This said, Patroclus to the battle flies; Great Merion follows, and new shouts arise: Shields, helmets rattle, as the warriors close; And thick and heavy sounds the storm of blows. As through the shrilling vale, or mountain ground, The labours of the woodman's axe resound; Blows following blows are heard re-echoing wide, While crackling forests fall on every side: Thus echoed all the fields with loud alarms, So fell the warriors, and so rung their arms. Now great Sarpedon on the sandy shore, His heavenly form defaced with dust and gore, And stuck with darts by warring heroes shed, Lies undistinguish'd from the vulgar dead. His long-disputed corse the chiefs enclose, On every side the busy combat grows; Thick as beneath some shepherd's thatch'd abode (The pails high foaming with a milky flood) The buzzing flies, a persevering train, Incessant swarm, and chased return again. Jove view'd the combat with a stern survey, And eyes that flash'd intolerable day. Fix'd on the field his sight, his breast debates The vengeance due, and meditates the fates: Whether to urge their prompt effect, and call The force of Hector to Patroclus' fall, This instant see his short-lived trophies won, And stretch him breathless on his slaughter'd son; Or yet, with many a soul's untimely flight, Augment the fame and horror of the fight. To crown Achilles' valiant friend with praise At length he dooms; and, that his last of days Shall set in glory, bids him drive the foe; Nor unattended see the shades below. Then Hector's mind he fills with dire dismay; He mounts his car, and calls his hosts away; Sunk with Troy's heavy fates, he sees decline The scales of Jove, and pants with awe divine. Then, nor before, the hardy Lycians fled, And left their monarch with the common dead: Around, in heaps on heaps, a dreadful wall Of carnage rises, as the heroes fall. (So Jove d