In the thrice-venerable forest here. And this white-bearded sage who squeezes now Thy snake, with ardent throat and lulling eye, And ye, white crowd of woodland sister-nymphs, While I FIRST I salute this soil of the blessed, river and rock! 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; 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? Malice, each eye of her gave me its glitter of gratified hate! "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 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 "Oak and olive and bay,-I bid you cease to inwreathe Such my cry as, rapid, I ran over Parnes' ridge ; Gully and gap, I clambered and cleared till, sudden, bar There, in the cool of a cleft, sat he-majestical Pan! Ivy drooped wanton, kissed his head, moss cushioned his hoof: 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? |