So neck to stubborn neck, and obstinate knee to knee, <br />Wrestled those two; and peerless Heracles <br />Could not prevail, nor get at any vantage… <br />So those huge hands that, small, had snapped great snakes, <br />Let slip the writhing of Antaeus' wrists: <br />Those hero's hands that wrenched the necks of bulls, <br />Now fumbled round the slim Antaeus' limbs, <br />Baffled. Then anger swelled in Heracles, <br />And terribly he grappled broader arms, <br />And yet more firmly fixed his grasped feet. <br />And up his back the muscles bulged and shone <br />Like climbing banks and domes of towering cloud. <br />And they who watched that wrestling say he laughed, <br />But no so loud as on Eurystheus of old.<br /><br />Wilfred Owen<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/antaeus-a-fragment/
