Page:Miscellanies - With a biographical sketch by Ralph Waldo Emerson and a general index to the writings. -- by Thoreau, Henry David.djvu/314

294 What echo, what odor has flown to me obscure,

Of god, or mortal, or else mingled,—

Came it to this terminal hill

A witness of my sufferings, or wishing what?

Behold bound me an unhappy god,

The enemy of Zeus, fallen under

The ill will of all the gods, as many as

Enter into the hall of Zeus,

Through too great love of mortals.

Alas! alas! what fluttering do I hear

Of birds near? for the air rustles

With the soft rippling of wings.

Everything to me is fearful which creeps this way.

Ch. Fear nothing; for friendly this band

Of wings with swift contention

Drew to this hill, hardly

Persuading the paternal mind.

The swift-carrying breezes sent me;

For the echo of beaten steel pierced the recesses

Of the caves, and struck out from me reserved modesty;

And I rushed unsandaled in a winged chariot.

Pr. Alas! alas! alas! alas!

Offspring of the fruitful Tethys,

And of him rolling around all

The earth with sleepless stream children,