Page:Pindar and Anacreon.djvu/139

Rh

For thee in gratitude is wove

The garland of a people's love;

Then still let bless'd Cyrene share

Thy kind and persevering care.

Now, monarch, with attentive ear

This maxim of the poet hear;

A virtuous messenger will crown

Each action with supreme renown;

And thus will to the muse accrue

Praise from the herald's message true.

Long time through fair Cyrene's town

Has just Demophilus been known;

And Battus' glorious house confess'd

The graces of his spotless breast.

Ere yet complete youth's narrow span,

Among the boys he shone a man:

In solemn counsel he appears

The Nestor of a hundred years:

Slander's free tongue he bids be mute,

His virtues all her tales confute:

Taught the base railer to abhor,

And with the good to wage no war;

Protracting naught by slow delay,

For short with man occasion's stay.

Well can he seize the fitting hour,

No slave to wayward fortune's power.

The heaviest this of human woes,

That he who each fair blessing knows,

Bound by necessity's strong chain,

Must his encumber'd foot restrain.

Like Atlas, tottering with the weight

Of all the bright incumbent heaven,