But, but who the thrice-renewed probation Though twenty lustres rolling round
Of either world may well endure;

With rising youth her nation crowned,
And keep with righteous destination

In heart, in hand, should none be found The soul from all transgression pure;

Like Theron's honoured name.To such and such alone is given,

Yes! we have heard the factious liek To walk the rainbow paths of heaven,

But let the babbling vulgar try To that tall city of almighty time,

To blot his worth with tyrannyWhere Ocean's balmy breezes play,

Seek thou the ocean strand And, flashing to the western day,

And when thy soul would fain record
The gorgeous blossoms of such blessed clime, The bounteous deeds of yonder lord,
Now in the happy isles are seen

Go-reckon up the sand !
Sparkling through the groves of green;
And now, all glorious to behold,
Tinge the wave with floating gold.-

III.
Hence are their garlands woven-hence their
hands

TO THE SAME. Filled with triumphal boughs ;—the righteous May my solemn strain ascending doom

Please the long-haired Helen well,
Of Rhadamanthus, whom, o'er these his lands,

And those brave twins of Leda's shell
A blameless judge in every time to come,
Chronos, old Chronos, sire of gods hath placed;

The stranger's holy cause defending !

With whose high name the chorus blending Who with his consort dear,

To ancient Agragas shall rise, Dread Rhea, reigneth here,

And Theron for the chariot prize On cloudy throne with deathless honour graced.

Again, and not in vain, contending And still, they say, in high communion, The muse, in numbers bold and high, Peleus and Cadmus here abide;

Hath taught my Dorian note to fly, And, with the blest in blessed union,

Worthy of silent awe, a strange sweet harmony. (Nor Jove has Thetis' prayer denied.)(7)

Yes !-as I fix mine eager view The daughter of the ancient sea

On yonder wreath of paly blue, Hath brought her warrior boy to be;

That olive wreath, whose shady round Him whose stern avenging blow

Amid the courser's mane is bounded; Laid the prop of llium low,

I feel again the sacred glow Hector, trained to slaughter, fell,

That bids my strain of rapture flow, By all but him invincible;

With shrilly breath of Spartan flute, And sea-born Cycnus tamed; and slew The many-voiced harp to suit; Aurora's knight of Ethiop hue.

And wildly fling my numbers sweet,

Again mine ancient friend to greet. Beneath my rattling belt I wear

Nor, Pisa, thee I leave unstrung; A sheaf of arrows keen and clear,

To men the parent of renown. Of vocal shafts, that wildly fly,

Amid whose shady ringlets strung,
Nor ken the base their import high,

Etolia binds her olive crown;
Yet to the wise they breathe no vulgar melody. Whose sapling root from Scythia down
Yes, he is wise whom nature's dower And Ister's fount Alcides bare,(9)
Hath raised above the crowd.-

To deck his parent's hallowed town;
But, trained in study's formal hour,

With placid brow and suppliant prayer There are who hate the minst rel's power,(8) Soothing the favoured northern seed, As daws who mark the eagle tower,

Whose horny-hoofed victims bleed
And croak in envy loud !-

To Phæbus of the flowing hair.
So let them rail ! but thou, my heart!
Rest on the bow thy levelled dart;

A boon from these the hero prayed :
Nor seek a worthier aim

One graft of that delightful tree; For arrow sent on friendship's wing,

To Jove's high hill a welcome shade, Than him the Agragantine king

To men a blessed fruit to be, Who best thy song may claim.

And crown of future victory.For, by eternal truth I swear,

For that fair moon, whose slender light His parent town shall scantly bear

With inefficient horn had shone, A soul to every friend so dear,

When late on Pisa's airy height A breast so void of blame;

He reared to Jove the altar stone;

(Psaumis, the patriot, whom thy peopled town So bright, so bold, so wonderful,
Its second author owns,) with rite divine

The choicest themes of verse I cull,
Suspends !-His praise the twice six altars tell To each high song a frontal high!-
Of the great gods whom he hath feasted well But, lives there one whose brows around
With blood of bulls; the praise of victory,

The green Olympian wreath is bound;
Where cars and mules and steeds contest the prize; Prophet and priest in those abodes
And that green garland of renown to thee Where Pisans laud the sire of gods ;
He hallows, virgin daughter of the sea !

And Syracusa's denizen ?-
And to his sire and household deities-

Who, 'mid the sons of mortal men,
Thee too, returning home from Pelops' land, While envy's self before his name
Thee, guardian Pallas, and thy holy wood, Abates her rage, may fitlier claim
He hails with song; and cool Oanus' flood; Whate'er a bard may yield of fame?
And of his native pool the rushy strand;
And thy broad bed, refreshing Hipparis, For sure to no forbidden strife,
Whose silent waves the peopled city kiss; In hallowed Pisa's field of praise,
That city which hath blest his bounteous hand, He came, the priest of blameless life ! -

Rearing her goodly bowers on high.-(12) Nor who in peace hath past his days,

That now, redeemed from late disgrace, Marring with canker sloth his might, The wealthy mother of a countless race,

May hope a name in standing fight She lifts her front in shining majesty.

Nor in the hollow ship to raise ! 'Tis ever thus! by toil, and pain,

By toil, illustrious toil alone, And cumbrous cost, we strive to gain

Of elder times the heroes shone; Some seeming prize whose issues lie

And, bought by like emprize, to thee, In darkness and futurity.

Oh warrior priest, like honour be! And yet, if conquest crown our aim,

Such praise as good Adrastus bore

To him, the prophet chief(13) of yore,
Then, foremost in the rolls of fame,
Even from the envious herd a forced applause we

When, snatched from Thebes' accursed fight,

With steed and car and armour bright,
claim.
O cloud-enthroned, protecting Jove,

Down, down he sank to earthly night.
Who sitt'st the Cronian cliffs above,
And Alpheus' ample wave,

When the fight was ended,

And the sevenfold pyres
And that dark gloom hast deigned to love

All their funeral fires
Of Ida's holy cave!
On softest Lydian notes to thee

In one sad lustre blended.
I tune the choral prayer,

The leader of the host
That this thy town, the brave, the free,

Murmured mournfully, The strong in virtuous energy,

" I lament for the eye May feel thine endless care.

Of all mine army lost!And, victor thou, whose matchless might

To gods and mortals dear, The Pisan wreath bath bound;

Either art he knew; Still, Psaumis, be thy chief delight

Augur tried and true, In generous coursers found.

And strong to wield the spear!" Calm be thy latter age, and late

And by the powers divine, And gently fall the stroke of fate,

Such praise is justly thine,
Thy children standing round !-

Oh Syracusian peer,
And know, when favouring gods have given For of a gentle blood thy race is sprung,
A green old age, a temper even,

As she shall truly tell, the muse of honeyed tongue,
And wealth and fame in store,
The task were vain to scale the heaven ; Then yoke the mules of winged pace,
-Have those immortals more?

And, Phintis, climb the car with me ;(14)

For well they know the path to trace
VI.

Of yonder victor's pedigree !

Unbar the gates of song, unbar!
TO AGESIAS OF SYRACUSE.

For we to day must journey far,
Who seeks a goodly bower to raise,

To Sparta, and to Pitane.-
Conspicuous to the stranger's eye,
With gold the lintel overlays,

She, mournful nymph, and nursing long
And clothes the porch in ivory.-

Her silent pain and virgin wrong,

1

To Neptune's rape a daughter fair,

| From that dark bed of breathing bloom Evadne of the glossy hair,

His mother gave his name; (Dark as the violet's darkest shade,)

And Iamus, through years to come, In solitary sorrow bare.

Will live in lasting fame; Then to her nurse the infant maid

Who, when the blossom of his days, She weeping gave, and bade convey

Had ripened on the tree, To high Phersana's hall away:

From forth the brink where Alpheus strays, Where woman-grown, and doomed to prove Invoked the god whose sceptre sways In turn a god's disastrous love,

The hoarse resounding sea; Her charms allured the lord of day.

And, whom the Delian isle obeys,

The archer deity.Nor long the months, ere, fierce in pride,

Alone amid the nightly shade, The painful tokens of disgrace

Beneath the naked heaven he prayed, Her foster-father sternly eyed,

And sire and grandsire called to aid; Fruit of the furtive god's embrace.

When lo, a voice that loud and dread He spake not, but, with soul on flame,

Burst from the horizon free; He sought th' unknown offender's name,

“ Hither!" it spake, "to Pisa's shore! At Phæbus' Pythian dwelling place.

“My voice, oh son, shall go before, But she, beneath the greenwood spray,

"Beloved, follow me!"Her zone of purple silk untied; And flung the silver clasp away

So, in the visions of his sire, he went That rudely pressed her heaving side ;(15) Where Cronium's scarred and barren brow While, in the solitary wood,

Was red with morning's earliest glow Lucina's self to aid her stood,

Though darkness wrapt the nether element.And fate a secret force supplied.

There, in a lone and craggy dell,

A double spirit on him fell, But, who the mother's pang can tell

Th' unlying voice of birds to tell, As sad and slowly she withdrew,

And, (when Alcmena's son should found And bade her babe a long farewell,

The holy games in Elis crowned,) Laid on a bed of violets blue?

By Jove's high altar evermore to dwell, When ministers of Heaven's decree,

Prophet and priest !- From him descend (Dire nurses they and strange to see,)

The fathers of our valiant friend, Two scaly snakes of azure hue

Wealthy alike and just and wise, Watched o'er his helpless infancy,

Who trod the plain and open way; And, rifled from the mountain bee,

And who is he that dare despise Bare on their forky tongues a harmless honey dew.

With galling taunt the Cronian prize, Swift roll the wheels! from Delphos home Or their illustrious toil gainsay, Arcadia's car-borne chief is come;

Whose chariots whirling twelve times round But, ah, how changed his eye!

With burning wheels the Olympian ground His wrath is sunk, and past his pride,

Have gilt their brow with glory's ray ? “Where is Evadne's babe," he cried,

For, not the steams of sacrifice “Child of the deity ?

From cool Cyllene's height of snow,(16) "T was thus the augur god replied, Nor vainly from thy kindred rise “Nor strove his noble seed to hide;

The heaven-appeasing litanies "And to his favoured boy, beside,

To Hermes, who to men below, “The gift of prophecy,

Or gives the garland or denies :“And power beyond the sons of men By whose high aid, Agesias, know, "The secret things of fate to ken,

And his, the thunderer of the skies, “His blessing will supply.”—

The olive wreath hath bound thy brow!-
But, vainly, from his liegemen round,
He sought the noble child;

Arcadian! Yes, a warmer zeal
Who, naked on the grassy ground,

Shall whet my tongue thy praise to tell ! And nurtured in the wild,

I feel the sympathetic flame Was moistened with the sparkling dew

Of kindred love;-a Theban I, Beneath his hawthorn bower;

Whose parent nymph from Arcady Where morn her wat'ry radiance threw, (Metope's daughter, Thebe) came.Now golden bright, now deeply blue,

Dear fountain goddess, warrior maid, Upon the violet flower.

By whose pure rills my youth hath played ;