And now no outstretched arm Hurls forth the javelin, but hand to hand With swords they wage the fight: each from his ship Leans forward to the stroke, and falls when slain Upon a foeman's deck.

Deep flows the stream Of purple slaughter to the foamy main: By piles of floating corpses are the sides, Though grappled, kept asunder.

Some, half dead, Plunge in the ocean, gulping down the brine Encrimsoned with their blood; some lingering still Draw their last struggling breath amid the wreck Of broken navies: weapons which have missed Find yet their victims, and the falling steel Fails not in middle deep to deal the wound.
One vessel circled by Phocaean keels Divides her strength, and on the right and left On either side with equal war contends; On whose high poop while Tagus fighting gripped The stern Phocaean, pierced his back and breast Two fatal weapons; in the midst the steel Meets, and the blood, uncertain whence to flow, Stands still, arrested, till with double course Forth by a sudden gush it drives each dart, And sends the life abroad through either wound.
Here fated Telon also steered his ship: No pilot's hand upon an angry sea More deftly ruled a vessel.

Well he knew, Or by the sun or crescent moon, how best To set his canvas fitted for the breeze To-morrow's light would bring.

His rushing stem Shattered a Roman vessel: but a dart Hurled at the moment quivers in his breast.
He falls, and in the fall his dying hand Diverts the prow.