THE FIRST OLYMPIC ODE. TO HIERO OF SYRACUSE, VICTOR IN THE HORSE RACE. CAN earth, or fire, or liquid air, With water's sacred stream compare? Can aught that wealthy tyrants hold Surpass the lordly blaze of gold? Or lives there one, whose restless eye Would seek along the empty sky, Beneath the sun's meridian ray, A warmer star, a purer day?— O thou, my soul, whose choral song Would tell of contests sharp and strong, Extol not other lists above The circus of Olympian Jove; Whence, borne on many a tuneful tongue, To Saturn's seed the anthem sung, With harp, and flute, and trumpet's call, By Alpheus' brink, with feet of flame, Self-driven, to the goal he tended: And earn'd the olive wreath of fame For that dear lord, whose righteous name The sons of Syracusa tell: Who loves the generous courser well : Belov'd himself by all who dwell In Pelops' Lydian colony.— -Of earth-embracing Neptune, he The darling, when, in days of yore, All lovely from the caldron red By Clotho's spell delivered, The youth an ivory shoulder bore. -Well!-these are tales of mystery!- And many a darkly-woven lie With men will easy credence gain; While truth, calm truth, may speak in vain;- For Eloquence, whose honey'd sway Our frailer mortal wits obey, Can honour give to actions ill, And faith to deeds incredible;- F As bards in ancient story read, The dark-wing'd eagle's prey.— And when no earthly tongue could tell The fate of thee, invisible; Nor friends, who sought thee wide in vain, To soothe thy weeping mother's pain, Could bring the wanderer home again; Some envious neighbour's spleen, In distant hints, and darkly, said, That in the caldron hissing red, And on the god's great table spread, |