Then the pilots of the place put out brisk and leapt on board;

"Why, what hope or chance have ships like these to pass?" laughed they: "Rocks to starboard, rocks to port, all the passage scarred and scored,

Shall the Formidable' here with her twelve and eighty guns

Think to make the river-mouth by the single narrow way,

Trust to enter where 't is ticklish for a craft of twenty tons,

And with flow at full beside? Now, 't is slackest ebb of tide. Reach the mooring? Rather say, While rock stands or water runs, Not a ship will leave the bay!"

IV

20

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

See, 'tis myself here standing alive, no spectre that speaks!

10

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-

Hellas utterly die,

the flower of

20

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?

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

Gully and gap I clambered and cleared till, sudden, a bar

Jutted, a stoppage of stone against me, blocking the way.

бо

Right! for I minded the hollow to traverse, the fissure across: "Where I could enter, there I depart by! Night in the fosse ?

Athens to aid? Though the dive were through Erebos, thus I obeyOut 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.

70

"Halt, Pheidippides!"-halt I did, my brain of a whirl: "Hither to me! Why pale in my presence?” he gracious began:

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