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Rh On them fell strife and heavy war,

What time Achilles from his car,

Leaping with hasty step on earth,

By wrathful spear's ensanguined head

The monarch number'd with the dead,

Who to bright morning owed his birth.

Poets of other ages here

Have urged their chariots' swift career:

And I in this pursuit am join'd—

The waves that near the rudder flow,

While the ship cleaves the depths below,

First occupy the steersman's mind.

But I on willing shoulders bear

A double load of anxious care,

And come a herald to proclaim

The glories of the sacred game,

Whose five-and-twenty garlands grace

Alcimidas' illustrious race.

Thee, boy, and Timidas, who strove

By the Saturnian monarch's grove,

The guerdon of Olympia's fray

Thy lot forbade to bear away.

E'en like the dolphin race that sweep

On rapid fin the watery deep,

Melesias would I name, whose force

And hands direct the chariot's course.