Author's Note: My attempt at poetically expressing my love of the Iliad. Your comments are greatly appreciated.
Achilles
Doomed to death and glory-
A life short-lived but etched in song
Or to life long and unremembered
Pride insulted and prizes stolen
The long life tastes sweet
Upon the embittered tongue
To return to Peleus, aged father and King
And leave the walls of Troy
To the hands of greedy Agamemnon.
But, alas, such was not the way of Fate
And it was to a glorious end
That Fate had condemned fair Thetis' son.
For into the battle went Patroclus,
Gleaming in his highborn kinsman's arms
And to honored Hector's spear he fell.
Weeping Achilles mourned through the night
And to him came his divine mother
Setting new arms in his vengeful hands.
Grief rekindled the wrath of Achilles
For next morn he stood god-like above all-
none saw the red-rims 'round the fire of his eyes.
Into battle did he stride, glorious as Ares
And all that saw him fled or fell
Even dauntless Hector ran on before him.
Alas for Hector, who was cradled by Death,
Wrathful Achilles would show no pity
For the slaying of his beloved friend.
He took the body of illustrious Hector
Pulling it ruthlessly behind his cart
And the Trojans knew their doom had come.
Though the death of Patroclus would ne'er be avenged
At the last, Achilles yielded Hector's corpse
To aged Priam, loving father of his son
For Achilles knew his end was nigh
And at last the invincible child of Thetis
Was shot and slain before Troy's Walls.
Though ancient Achaea be now a land of dust
Bards sing still of the Wrath of Achilles,
That hero doomed to death and glory.