A source-book of ancient history - The Search For Mecca

!
The Battle of Salamis i73
Of Echo. Thrilled through all our folks dismay
Of baffled expectation; for the Greeks
Not as for flight that holy psean sang,
But straining battleward with heroic hearts.
The trumpet's blare set all their hnes aflame.
Straightway with chiming dip of dashing oars
They smote the loud brine to the timing cry,
And suddenly flashed they all full into view.
Foremost their right wing seemly-ordered led
In fair array; next, all their armament
Therewithal was heard
Battleward swept on.
A great shout—'On ye sons of Hellas, on!
Win for the home-land freedom [—freedom win
For sons, wives, temples of ancestral Gods,
And old sires' graves! This day are all at stake!'
Yea, and from us low thunder of Persian cheers
Answered—no time it was for dall>dng
Then straightway galley dashed her beak of bronze
On galley. 'Twas a Hellene ship began
The onset, and shore all the figure-head
From a Phoenician: captain charged on captain.
At first the Persian navy's torrent-flood
Withstood them; but when our vast fleet was cramped
In strait-space—friend could lend no aid to friend,—
Then ours by fangs of allies' beaks of bronze
Were struck, and shattered all their oar-array;
While with shrewd strategy the Hellene ships
Swept around, and rammed us, and upturned were hulls
Of ships;—no more could one discern the sea.
Clogged all with wrecks and limbs of slaughtered men:
The shores, the rock-reefs, were with corpses strewn.
Then rowed each bark in fleeing disarray,
Yea, every keel of our barbarian host.
They with oar-fragments and with shards of wrecks
Smote, hacked, as men smite tunnies, or a draught
Of fishes; and a moaning, all confused
With shrieking, hovered wide o'er that sea-brine
Till night's dark presence blotted out the horror.
That swarm of woes, yea, though for ten days' space