till their labours meet; Thick fall the heapy harvests at their feet: So Greece and Troy the field of war divide, And falling ranks are strow'd on every side. None stoop'd a thought to base inglorious flight;(221) But horse to horse, and man to man they fight, Not rabid wolves more fierce contest their prey; Each wounds, each bleeds, but none resign the day. Discord with joy the scene of death descries, And drinks large slaughter at her sanguine eyes: Discord alone, of all the immortal train, Swells the red horrors of this direful plain: The gods in peace their golden mansions fill, Ranged in bright order on the Olympian hill: But general murmurs told their griefs above, And each accused the partial will of Jove. Meanwhile apart, superior, and alone, The eternal Monarch, on his awful throne, Wrapt in the blaze of boundless glory sate; And fix'd, fulfill'd the just decrees of fate. On earth he turn'd his all-considering eyes, And mark'd the spot where Ilion's towers arise; The sea with ships, the fields with armies spread, The victor's rage, the dying, and the dead. Thus while the morning-beams, increasing bright, O'er heaven's pure azure spread the glowing light, Commutual death the fate of war confounds, Each adverse battle gored with equal wounds. But now (what time in some sequester'd vale The weary woodman spreads his sparing meal, When his tired arms refuse the axe to rear, And claim a respite from the sylvan war; But not till half the prostrate forests lay Stretch'd in long ruin, and exposed to day) Then, nor till then, the Greeks' impulsive might Pierced the black phalanx, and let in the light. Great Agamemnon then the slaughter led, And slew Bienor at his people's head: Whose squire Oileus, with a sudden spring, Leap'd from the chariot to revenge his king; But in his front he felt the fatal wound, Which pierced his brain, and stretch'd him on the ground. Atrides spoil'd, an