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No bolt launched from Olumpos! Lo, their answer at last! 33
“Has Persia come,–does Athens ask aid,–may Sparta befriend?
Nowise precipitate judgment–too weighty the issue at stake!
Count we no time lost time which lags thro’ respect to the Gods!
Ponder that precept of old, ‘No warfare, whatever the odds
In your favour, so long as the moon, half-orbed, is unable to take
Full-circle her state in the sky!’ Already she rounds to it fast:
Athens must wait, patient as we–who judgment suspend.” 40

Athens,–except for that sparkle,–thy name, I had mouldered to ash!
That sent a blaze thro’ my blood; off, off and away was I back,
–Not one word to waste, one look to lose on the false and the vile!
Yet “O Gods of my land!” I cried, as each hillock and plain,
Wood and stream, I knew, I named, rushing past them again,
“Have ye kept faith, proved mindful of honours we paid you erewhile?
Vain was the filleted victim, the fulsome libation! Too rash
Love in its choice, paid you so largely service so slack!

“Oak and olive and bay,–I bid you cease to en-wreathe
Brows made bold by your leaf! Fade at the Persian’s foot, 50
You that, our patrons were pledged, should never adorn a slave!
Rather I hail thee, Parnes,–trust to thy wild waste tract! 52
Treeless, herbless, lifeless mountain! What matter if slacked
My speed may hardly be, for homage to crag and to cave
No deity deigns to drape with verdure?–at least I can breathe,
Fear in thee no fraud from the blind, no lie from the mute!”

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.
Right! for I minded the hollow to traverse, the fissure across: 60
“Where I could enter, there I depart by! Night in the fosse?
Athens to aid? Tho’ the dive were thro’ Erebos, thus I obey– 62
Out 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.
“Halt, Pheidippides!”–halt I did, my brain of a whirl: 70
“Hither to me! Why pale in my presence?”! he gracious began:
“How is it,–Athens, only in Hellas, holds me aloof?

“Athens, she only, rears me no fane, makes me no feast!
Wherefore? Than I what godship to Athens more helpful of old?
Ay, and still, and forever her friend! Test Pan, trust me!
Go bid Athens take heart, laugh Persia to scorn, have faith
In the temples and tombs! Go, say to Athens, ‘The Goat-God saith:
When Persia–so much as strews not the soil–Is cast in the sea,
Then praise Pan who fought in the ranks with your most and least,
Goat-thigh to greaved-thigh, made one cause with the free and the
bold!’ 80