In the thrice-venerable forest here.

And this white-bearded sage who squeezes now
The berried plant, is Phoibos' son of fame,
Asclepios, whom my radiant brother taught
The doctrine of each herb and flower and root,
To know their secret'st virtue and express
The saving soul of all: who so has soothed
With lavers the torn brow and murdered cheeks,
Composed the hair and brought its gloss again,
And called the red bloom to the pale skin back,
And laid the strips and jagged ends of flesh
Even once more, and slacked the sinew's knot
Of every tortured limb-that now he lies
As if mere sleep possessed him underneath
These interwoven oaks and pines. Oh cheer,
Divine presenter of the healing rod,

Thy snake, with ardent throat and lulling eye,
Twines his lithe spires around! I say, much cheer!
Proceed thou with thy wisest pharmacies!

And ye, white crowd of woodland sister-nymphs,
Ply, as the sage directs, these buds and leaves
That strew the turf around the twain!
Await, in fitting silence, the event.

While I

FIRST I salute this soil of the blessed, river and rock!
Gods of my birthplace, demons and heroes, honor to all!
Then I name thee, claim thee for our patron, co-equal in praise
-Ay, with Zeus the Defender, with Her of the ægis and spear!
Also, ye of the bow and the buskin, praised be your peer,

Now, henceforth, and forever,-O latest to whom I upraise Hand and heart and voice! For Athens, leave pasture and flock!

Present to help, potent to save, Pan-patron I call!

Archons of Athens, topped by the tettix, see, I return!

See, 'tis myself here standing alive, no specter that speaks! Crowned with the myrtle, did you command me, Athens and

you,

Run, Pheidippides, run and race, reach Sparta for aid!

Persia has come, we are here, where is She?" Your command I obeyed,

Ran and raced: like stubble, some field which a fire runs through,

Was the space between city and city: two days, two nights did

I burn

Over the hills, under the dales, down pits and up peaks.

Into their midst I broke: breath served but for "Persia has come!

Persia bids Athens proffer slaves'-tribute, water and earth;
Razed to the ground is Eretria-but Athens, shall Athens sink,
Drop into dust and die-the flower of Hellas utterly die,
Die, with the wide world spitting at Sparta, the stupid, the
stander-by?

Answer me quick, what help, what hand do you stretch o'er destruction's brink?

How, when? No care for my limbs !-there's lightning in all and some

Fresh and fit your message to bear, once lips give it birth!'

O my Athens-Sparta love thee? Did Sparta respond?
Every face of her leered in a furrow of envy, mistrust,

Malice, each eye of her gave me its glitter of gratified hate!
Gravely they turned to take counsel, to cast for excuses. I stood
Quivering, the limbs of me fretting as fire frets, an inch from
dry wood:

"Persia has come, Athens asks aid, and still they debate? Thunder, thou Zeus! Athene, are Spartans a quarry beyond Swing of thy spear? Phoibos and Artemis, clang them 'Ye must'!"

No bolt launched from Olumpos! Lo, their answer at last!

Has Persia come,-does Athens ask aid,-may Sparta befriend?

Nowise precipitate judgment—too weighty the issue at stake! Count we no time lost time which lags through respect to the

Gods!

6

Ponder that precept of old, No warfare, whatever the odds
In your favor, so long as the moon, half-orbed, is unable to take
Full-circle her state in the sky!' Already she rounds to it fast:
Athens must wait, patient as we-who judgment suspend."
Athens, except for that sparkle,―thy name, I had moldered
to ash!

That sent a blaze through my blood; off, off and away was I back,

-Not one word to waste, one look to lose on the false and the vile!

Yet "O Gods of my land!" I cried, as each hillock and plain, Wood and stream, I knew, I named, rushing past them again, "Have ye kept faith, proved mindful of honors we paid you erewhile?

Vain was the filleted victim, the fulsome libation! Too rash
Love in its choice, paid you so largely service so slack!

"Oak and olive and bay,-I bid you cease to inwreathe
Brows made bold by your leaf! Fade at the Persian's foot,
You that, our patrons were pledged, should never adorn a slave!
Rather I hail thee, Parnes,-trust to thy wild waste tract!
Treeless, herbless, lifeless mountain! What matter if slacked
My speed may hardly be, for homage to crag and to cave
No deity deigns to drape with verdure—at least I can breathe,
Fear in thee no fraud from the blind, no lie from the mute!"

Such my cry as, rapid, I ran over Parnes' ridge ;

Gully and gap, I clambered and cleared till, sudden, bar
Jutted, a stoppage of stone against me, blocking the way,
Right! for I minded the hollow to traverse, the fissure across :
Where I could enter, there I depart by! Night in the fosse?
Out of the day dive, into the day as bravely arise! No bridge
Better!"-when-ha! what was it I came on, of wonders that
are?

There, in the cool of a cleft, sat he-majestical Pan!

Ivy drooped wanton, kissed his head, moss cushioned his hoof:
All the great God was good in the eyes grave-kindly—the curl
Carved on the bearded cheek, amused at a mortal's awe,
As, under the human trunk, the goat-thighs grand I saw.
"Halt, Pheidippides "-halt I did, my brain of a whirl :

66

Hither to me! Why pale in my presence?" he gracious began:

"How is it,-Athens, only in Hellas, holds me aloof?

"Athens, she only, rears me no fane, makes me no feast! Wherefore? Than I what godship to Athens more helpful of

old?