lost. 430
    Huge Ajax ceaseless sought his spear to cast
  At Hector brazen-mail’d, who, not untaught
  The warrior’s art, with bull-hide buckler stood
  Sheltering his ample shoulders, while he mark’d
  The hiss of flying shafts and crash of spears. 435
  Full sure he saw the shifting course of war
  Now turn’d, but scorning flight, bent all his thoughts
  To rescue yet the remnant of his friends. 
    As when the Thunderer spreads a sable storm
  O’er ether, late serene, the cloud that wrapp’d 440
  Olympus’ head escapes into the skies,
  So fled the Trojans from the fleet of Greece
  Clamoring in their flight, nor pass’d the trench
  In fair array; the coursers fleet indeed
  Of Hector, him bore safe with all his arms 445
  Right through, but in the foss entangled foul
  He left his host, and struggling to escape. 
  Then many a chariot-whirling steed, the pole
  Broken at its extremity, forsook
  His driver, while Patroclus with the shout 450
  Of battle calling his Achaians on,
  Destruction purposed to the powers of Troy. 
  They, once dispersed, with clamor and with flight
  Fill’d all the ways, the dust beneath the clouds
  Hung like a tempest, and the steeds firm-hoof’d 455
  Whirl’d off at stretch the chariots to the town. 
  He, wheresoe’er most troubled he perceived
  The routed host, loud-threatening thither drove,
  While under his own axle many a Chief
  Fell prone, and the o’ertumbled chariots rang. 460
  Right o’er the hollow foss the coursers leap’d
  Immortal, by the Gods to Peleus given,
  Impatient for the plain, nor less desire
  Felt he who drove to smite the Trojan Chief,
  But him his fiery steeds caught swift away. 465
    As when a tempest from autumnal skies
  Floats all the fields, what time Jove heaviest pours
  Impetuous rain, token of wrath divine
  Against perverters of the laws by force,
  Who drive forth justice, reckless of the Gods; 470
  The rivers and the torrents, where they dwell,
  Sweep many a green declivity away,
  And plunge at length, groaning, into the Deep
  From the hills headlong, leaving where they pass’d
  No traces of the pleasant works of man, 475
  So, in their flight, loud groan’d the steeds of Troy. 
  And now, their foremost intercepted all,
  Patroclus back again toward the fleet
  Drove them precipitate, nor the ascent
  Permitted them to Troy for which they strove, 480
  But in the midway space between the ships
  The river and the lofty Trojan wall
  Pursued them ardent, slaughtering whom he reached,
  And vengeance took for many a Grecian slain. 
  First then, with glittering spear the