Classic Poem

Hear! for our ploughshare is sundering
The glebe-furrows of starry-eyed
Aphrodite, where Graces guide
Our feet drawing nigh to the shrine
At the navel of earth hollow-thundering,
Where for Emmenus' heaven-blest line
And for Akragas' city enfolden
By her river, and, more than all,
For Xenocrates, riseth the hall
Of a treasure-house song-upholden
In Apollo's glen of the golden
Gifts gracing his temple-wall.

That treasure no rain-storm, hurling
Its pitiless hosts from the cloud
Amid thunders crashing loud
Shall sweep to abysses of sea
By the storm-wind with shingle-drift swirling;
But the porch of our treasury
In brightness unsullied shall flame, it
Shall publish the triumph afar,
Thrasybulus, won by thy car
In Krisa; and men shall acclaim it
For thy sire and thy kindred, shall name it
Their glory, their splendour-star.

At thy right hand thou settest him ever,
And so by the charge dost thou hold
Which of yore mid the hills, it is told,
To Achilles the child left lone
Did Philyra's son deliver,
Unto Peleus' mighty son:
‘First of Abiders in Heaven
Kronion do thou adore
Lord of the thunder's roar,
And be reverence alway given
Unto thy parents, even
To the end, till life be o'er.’

This selfsame spirit aforetime
Did mighty Antilochus bear:
For his father's sake did he dare
That Aethiop chief's death-stroke
When Memnon prevailed in the war-time.
For trammelled was Nestor's yoke
By the steed on the red earth lying
By the arrow of Paris shot.
Ever nearer was havoc wrought
By the lance that Memnon was plying;
And the sire to his son spake, crying
For help, being terror-distraught.

That cry on the air was not wasted;
But withstanding a mightier alone,
His father's life with his own
That godlike son redeemed,
And death's cup of glory he tasted.
So in after days he seemed
To the sons of each new generation
In those old times bygone
Ever the noblest son
In filial love's consecration.
Now—by none out of any nation
Is Thrasybulus outdone

In the duty ordained of our fathers.
With his sire's brother's glory he vies,
Is in usance of wealth ever wise,
Nor in arrogance lawlessly
Grasps at youth's pleasures, but gathers
Flower-wisdom of poesy
To the Muses' hid garden ascending
And he draweth nigh unto thee,
O Earth-shaker, Lord of the sea,
In thy chariot-contests contending
More sweet is his guest-befriending
Than the celled honeycomb of the bee.