Rearing her goodly bowers on high. That now, redeemed from late disgrace, The wealthy mother of a countless race, She lifts her front in shining majesty.

'Tis ever thus, by toil and pain,
And cumbrous cost, we strive to gain
Some seeming prize whose issues lie
In darkness and futurity.

And yet, if conquest crown our aim,
Then, foremost in the rolls of fame,

Even from the envious herd a forced applause we claim.

O cloud-enthroned, protecting Jove,

Who sittest the Cronian cliffs above,
And Alpheus' ample wave,

And that dark gloom hast deigned to love

Of Ida's holy cave.

On softest Lydian notes to thee

I tune the choral prayer,

That this thy town, the brave, the free,

The strong in virtuous energy,

May feel thine endless care.

And, victor thou, whose matchless might
The Pisan wreath hath bound,

Still, Psaumis, be thy chief delight

In generous coursers found.
Calm be thy latter age, and late

And gently fall the stroke of fate,
Thy children standing round.

And know, when favoring gods have given
A green old age, a temper even.

And wealth and fame in store,

The task were vain to scale the heaven.
Have those immortals inore?

VI.

TO AGESIAS OF SYRACUSE.

WHO seeks a goodly bower to raise,
Conspicuous to the stranger's eye,
With gold the lintel overlays,
And clothes the porch in ivory.

So bright, so bold, so wonderful,
The choicest themes of verse I cull,
To each high song a frontal high.
But lives there one whose brows around
The green Olympian wreath is bound;
Prophet and priest in those abodes
Where Pisans laud the sire of gods;
And Syracusa's denizen ?—

Who, 'mid the sons of mortal men,
While envy's self before his name
Abates her rage, may fitlier claim
Whate'er a bard may yield of fame ?
For sure to no forbidden strife,
In hallowed Pisa's field of praise,

He came, the priest of blameless life.
Nor who in peace hath past his days,
Marring with canker sloth his might,
May hope a name in standing fight,
Nor in the hollow ship to raise.
By toil, illustrious toil alone,
Of elder times the heroes shone;
And, bought by like emprize, to thee,
O warrior priest, like honor be,-
Such praise as good Adrastus bore

To him, the prophet chief of yore,

When, snatched from Thebes' accursed fight,
With steed and car and armor bright,

Down, down he sank to earthly night.

When the fight was ended,

And the sevenfold pyres
All their funeral fires

In one sad lustre blended,

The leader of the host
Murmured mournfully,
'I lament for the eye
Of all mine army lost,-
To gods and mortals dear,
Either art he knew;

Augur tried and true,

J

And strong to wield the spear.'
And by the powers divine,
Sush praise is justly thine,

O Syracusan peer,

For of a gentle blood thy race is sprung,
As she shall truly tell, the muse of hone
tongue.

Then yoke the mules of winged pace,
And, Phintis, climb the car with me;
For well they know the path to trace
Of yonder victor's pedigree.

Unbar the gates of song, unbar,—
For we today must journey far,
To Sparta, and to Pitane.

She, mournful nymph, and nursing long
Her silent pain and virgin wrong,
To Neptune's rape a daughter fair,
Evadne of the glossy hair,

(Dark as the violet's darkest shade,)

In solitary sorrow bare.

Then to her nurse the infant maid

She weeping gave, and bade convey

To high Phersana's hall away:

ere woman-grown, and doomed to prove urn a god's disastrous love,

Her charms allured the lord of day.