Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Asia: Vols. XXI–XXIII. 1876–79.
Troy
By Thomas Sackville (1536–1608)B
It made mine eyes in very tears consume:
When I beheld the woful word befall,
That by the wrathful will of gods was come;
And Jove’s unmoved sentence and foredoom
On Priam king, and on his town so bent.
I could not lin but I must there lament.
As, force perforce, there might no force avail,
But she must fall; and by her fall we learn
That cities, towers, wealth, world, and all shall quail:
No manhood might, nor nothing might prevail;
All were there prest full many a prince, and peer,
And many a knight that sold his death full dear.
Her hope, her joy, his force is now for naught:
O Troy, Troy, Troy, there is no boot but bale,
The hugy horse within thy walls is brought;
Thy turrets fall, thy knights, that whilom fought
In arms amid the field, are slain in bed,
Thy gods defiled, and all thy honor dead.
From wall to roof, till all to cinders waste:
Some fire the houses where the wretches sleep,
Some rush in here, some run in there as fast;
In everywhere or sword or fire they taste:
The walls are torn, the towers whirled to the ground;
There is no mischief but may there be found.
From Pallas’ house, with spercled tress undone,
Her wrists fast bound, and with Greeks’ rout empaled:
And Priam eke, in vain how he did run
To arms, whom Pyrrhus with despite hath done
To cruel death, and bathed him in the baign
Of his son’s blood, before the altar slain.
That in the shield so lively fair did shine?
Sith in this world I think was never wight
Could have set forth the half, not half so fine:
I can no more, but tell how there is seen
Fair Ilium fall in burning red gledes down,
And, from the soil, great Troy, Neptunus’ town.