Its goodly steeds and goodly colts I sing,
And, goodly too, its sea;
Ο Son of Cronos, Thee
We own, Thou great Poseidon, Lord and King,
For thou hast made it ours
To boast these wondrous dowers,
First in our city did'st first on horses fleet
Place the subduing bit;
And through the sea the oars well-handled flit,
Following the Nereids with their hundred feet!
1044–1095.
Stroph. I.
Fain would I be where meet,
In brazen-throated war,
The rush of foes who wheel in onset fleet,
Or by the Pythian shore,
Or where the waving torches gleam afar,
Where the Dread Powers watch o'er
Their mystic rites for men that mortal are,
E'en they whose golden key
Hath touched the tongue of priests, Eumolpidæ:
There, there, I deem, our Theseus leads the fight,
And those two sisters, dauntless, undismayed,
Will meet, with eager clamour of delight
That nothing leaves unsaid,
Where through these lands they tread.
Antistroph. I.
Or do they now, perchance,
On to the western slope
Of old Œatis' snowy crest advance,
Hastening on swiftest steed,
