sun rise, sun set

The greybeard kneels to clasp Achilles' knee
proposing both sides pause to tend their dead.
A vision, what the hero'll never be;
old age won't thin the tresses on his head.
Diminished to out-live his therapon,
his destiny's fulfilled with Hector's fall.
There's Neoptolemus when he'll be gone
to devastate the city and its wall.
Undying Thetis grieves for such a son
who'll never get to hold his  little boy.
Committed now, to see his project done,
that child's dispatched to seal the fate of Troy.
He'll die without a grey hair, or a scar
eclipsing--briefly--every other star.