Page:Pindar and Anacreon.djvu/38

30 Along the stated path of Jove

To Saturn's royal courts above

Have trod their heavenly way,

Where round the island of the bless'd

The ocean breezes play;

There golden flow'rets ever blow,

Some springing from earth's verdant breast,

These on the lonely branches glow,

While those are nurtured by the waves below.

From them the inmates of these seats divine

Around their hands and hair the woven garlands twine.

Such Rhadamanthus' just decree,

Who sits by Father Saturn's side,

Where with his all-possessing bride

Rhea, supreme he holds his court.

In those high ranks Peleus and Cadmus shine,

And to the blissful seats above

The prayer of Thetis won the breast of Jove

To waft the scion of her line,

Achilles, whose resistless might

The pride and hope of Troy o'erthrew,

Hector, till then unconquer'd, slew;

Till then th' unshaken pillar of the fight.

Cycnus the hero gave to death,

Aurora's Æthiop son to him resign'd his breath.

Full many a sharp and potent dart

That shows unspent the poet's art,

And to the wise sounds clear and shrill,

Rests in my well-stored quiver still.

But minds untaught some guide will need

Safe through the mystic paths to lead;