Came golden-haired Ganymede, As bard in ancient story read, The dark-winged eagle's prey. And when no earthly tongue could tell Nor friends, who sought thee wide in vain, In distant hints, and darkly, said, That head was Lydia's lord. Yet, could not mortal heart digest And now, condemned to endless dread,- He eyes, above his guilty head, The shadowy rocks' impending weight: For that, in frantic theft, And to his mortal peers in feasting poured For whom a sin it were With mortal life to share The mystic dainties of th' immortal board : And who by policy Can hope to 'scape the eye Of him who sits above by men and gods adored? For such offence, a doom severe, And raised to him the suppliant cry, Nor called in vain, through cloud and storm He came, whom thus the youth addressed— "O thou, if that immortal breast Have felt a lover's flame, A lover's prayer in pity hear, That guards my lovely dame,— For youthful knights thirteen By him have slaughtered been, Were evil augury; Nor durst a coward's heart the strife essay. Yet since alike to all The doom of death must fall, Ah, wherefore, sitting in unseemly shade, Remote from noble strife, And all the sweet applause to valor paid ?— Yes, I will dare the course; but, thou, Immortal friend, my prayer allow!' Thus, not in vain, his grief he told- And tireless steeds of winged pace. He tamed the strength of Pisa's king, He sleeps beneath the piled ground; Near that blessed spot where strangers move In many a long procession round The altar of protecting Jove. Yet chief, in yonder lists of fame, But what are past or future joys?— The present is our own. And he is wise who best employs The passing hour alone. To crown with knightly wreath the king, And on the smooth Æolian string For ne'er shall wandering minstrel find God, who beholdeth thee and all thy deeds, Have thee in charge, king Hiero!—so again The bard may sing thy horny-hoofed steeds In frequent triumph o'er the Olympian plain ; Nor shall the Bard awake a lowly strain, His wild notes flinging o'er the Cronian steep; Whose ready muse, and not invoked in vain, For such high mark her strongest shaft shall keep. Each hath his proper eminence. To kings indulgent, Providence (No farther search the will of heaven) |