“I was cut off from hope in that sad place,
      Which yet to name my spirit loathes and fears;
    My father held his hand upon his face;
      I, blinded by my tears,

   “Still strove to speak; my voice was thick with sighs,
      As in a dream.  Dimly I could descry
    The stern black-bearded kings, with wolfish eyes,
      Waiting to see me die.

   “The tall masts quivered as they lay afloat,
      The temples and the people and the shore;
    One drew a sharp knife through my tender throat
      Slowly,—­and—­nothing more.”

The wind now proving fair the fleet made sail and brought the forces to the coast of Troy.  The Trojans came to oppose their landing, and at the first onset Protesilaus fell by the hand of Hector.  Protesilaus had left at home his wife, Laodamia, who was most tenderly attached to him.  When the news of his death reached her she implored the gods to be allowed to converse with him only three hours.  The request was granted.  Mercury led Protesilaus back to the upper world, and when he died a second time Laodamia died with him.  There was a story that the nymphs planted elm trees round his grave which grew very well till they were high enough to command a view of Troy, and then withered away, while fresh branches sprang from the roots.

Wordsworth has taken the story of Protesilaus and Laodamia for the subject of a poem.  It seems the oracle had declared that victory should be the lot of that party from which should fall the first victim to the war.  The poet represents Protesilaus, on his brief return to earth, as relating to Laodamia the story of his fate: 

   “’The wished-for wind was given; I then revolved
      The oracle, upon the silent sea;
    And if no worthier led the way, resolved
      That of a thousand vessels mine should be
    The foremost prow impressing to the strand,—­
    Mine the first blood that tinged the Trojan sand.

   “’Yet bitter, ofttimes bitter was the pang
      When of thy loss I thought, beloved wife! 
    On thee too fondly did my memory hang,
      And on the joys we shared in mortal life,
    The paths which we had trod,—­these fountains, flowers;
    My new planned cities and unfinished towers.

   “’But should suspense permit the foe to cry,
      “Behold they tremble! haughty their array,
    Yet of their number no one dares to die?”
      In soul I swept the indignity away: 
    Old frailties then recurred:  but lofty thought
    In act embodied my deliverance wrought.’

   “... upon the side
      Of Hellespont (such faith was entertained)
    A knot of spiry trees for ages grew
      From out the tomb of him for whom she died;
      And ever when such stature they had gained
    That Ilium’s walls were subject to their view,
    The trees’ tall summits withered at the sight,
    A constant interchange of growth and blight!”