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Book V. Canto Xlv. The Seven Defeated

Canto Xlv.: The Seven Defeated.


Forth went the seven in brave attire,

In glory brilliant as the fire.

Impetuous chiefs with massive bows,

The quellers of a host of foes:

Trained from their youth in martial lore,

And masters of the arms they bore:

Each emulous and fiercely bold,

And banners wrought with glittering gold

Waved o'er their chariots, drawn at speed

By coursers of the noblest breed.

On through the ruins of the grove

At Hannmn they fiercely drove,

And from the ponderous bows they strained

A shower of deadly arrows rained.

Then scarce was seen the Vnar's form

Enveloped in the arrowy storm.

So stands half veiled the Mountains' King

When rainy clouds about him cling.

By nimble turn, by rapid bound

He shunned the shafts that rained around,

Eluding, as in air he rose.

The rushing chariots of his foes,

The mighty Vnar undismayed

Amid his archer foemen played,

As plays the frolic wind on high

Mid bow-armed 1b clouds that fill the sky,

He raised a mighty roar and yell

That fear on all the army fell,

And then, his warrior soul aglow

With fury, rushed upon the foe,

Some with his open hand he beat

To death and trampled with his feet;

Some with fierce nails he rent and slew,

And others with his fists o'erthrew;

Some with his legs, as on he rushed,

Some with his bulky chest he crushed:

While some struck senseless by his roar

Dropped on the ground and breathed no more.

The remnant, seized with sudden dread,

Turned from the grove and wildly fled.

The trampled earth was thickly strown

With steed and car and flag o'erthrown,

And the red blood in rivers flowed

From slaughtered fiends o'er path and road.

Footnotes

419:1
We were told a few lines before that the chariot of Jambumah was drawn by asses. Here horses are spoken of. The Commentator notices the discrepancy and says that by horses asses are meant.
yeats' september 1913| yeats responsibilitie
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