Also, ye of the bow and the buskin, praised be your peer, Now, henceforth and forever,-O latest to whom I upraise Hand and heart and voice! For Athens, leave pasture and

flock!

Present to help, potent to save, Pan-patron I call!

Archons of Athens, topped by the tettix, see, I return!
See, 'tis myself here standing alive, no spectre that speaks!
Crowned with the myrtle, did you command me, Athens and

you,

'Run, Pheidippides, run and race, reach Sparta for aid! Persia has come, we are here, where is She?' Your command I obeyed,

Ran and raced: like stubble, some field which a fire runs through,

Was the space between city and city: two days, two nights did I burn

Over the hills, under the dales, down pits and up peaks.

Into their midst I broke: breath served but for 'Persia has come!

Persia bids Athens proffer slaves'-tribute, water and earth; Razed to the ground is Eretria-but Athens, shall Athens sink,

Drop into dust and die-the flower of Hellas utterly die, Die, with the wide world spitting at Sparta, the stupid, the stander-by?

Answer me quick, what help, what hand do you stretch o'er destruction's brink?

How, when? No care for my limbs!-there's lightning in all and some

Fresh and fit your message to bear, once lips give it birth!'

O my Athens-Sparta love thee? Did Sparta respond?
Every face of her leered in a furrow of envy, mistrust,

Malice, each eye of her gave me its glitter of gratified hate! Gravely they turned to take counsel, to cast for excuses.

stood

I

Quivering, the limbs of me fretting as fire frets, an inch from dry wood:

'Persia has come, Athens asks aid, and still they debate? Thunder, thou Zeus! Athene, are Spartans a quarry beyond Swing of thy spear? Phoibos and Artemis, clang them "Ye must"!'

No bolt launched from Olumpos! Lo, their answer at last! '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 through respect to

the gods!

Ponder that precept of old, "No warfare, whatever the odds In your favor, so long as the moon, half-orbed, is unable to

take

Full-circle her state in the sky!" Already she rounds to it

That sent a blaze through 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 honors we paid you erewhile?

Vain was the filleted victim, the fulsome libation! Too

rash

Love in its choice, païd you so largely service so slack!

'Oak and olive and bay,—I bid you cease to enwreathe Brows made bold by your leaf! Fade at the Persian's foot, You that, our patrons were pledged, should never adorn a slave!

Rather I hail thee, Parnes,-trust to thy wild waste tract! 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:

'Where I could enter, there I depart by! Night in the fosse?

Athens to aid? Though the dive were through Erebos, thus

I obey-

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: '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 GoatGod 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!"

6

Say Pan saith: "Let this, foreshowing the place, be the pledge!""

(Gay, the liberal hand held out this herbage bear

-Fennel-I grasped it a-tremble with dew-whatever it bode)

'While, as for thee .. But enough! He was gone. If I ran hitherto

Be sure that, the rest of my journey, I ran no longer, but

flew.

Parnes to Athens-earth no more, the air was my road: Here am I back. Praise Pan, we stand no more on the

razor's edge!

Pan for Athens, Pan for me! I too have a guerdon rare!

Then spoke Miltiades. And thee, best runner of Greece, Whose limbs did duty indeed,-what gift is promised thy

self?

Tell it us straightway,-Athens the mother demands of her

son!'

Rosily blushed the youth: he paused: but, lifting at length His eyes from the ground, it seemed as he gathered the rest of his strength

Into the utterance Pan spoke thus: "For what thou hast done

Count on a worthy reward! Henceforth be allowed thee

release

From the racer's toil, no vulgar reward in praise or in pelf!"

'I am bold to believe, Pan means reward the most to my

mind!

Fight I shall, with our foremost, wherever this fennel may

grow,

Pound-Pan helping us-Persia to dust, and, under the deep,

Whelm her away forever; and then,-no Athens to save,— Marry a certain maid, I know keeps faith to the brave,— Hie to my house and home: and, when my children shall

creep

Close to my knees,-recount how the God was awful yet kind,

Promised their sire reward to the full-rewarding him— so!'

Unforeseeing one! Yes, he fought on the Marathon day:

So, when Persia was dust, all cried To Akropolis!

Run, Pheidippides, one race more! the meed is thy due! "Athens is saved, thank Pan," go shout!' He flung down his shield,

Ran like fire once more: and the space 'twixt the Fennel

field

And Athens was stubble again, a field which a fire runs

through,