Page:Prometheus Bound, and other poems.djvu/44

38 For first ye asked to hear this maiden's grief

As her own lips might tell it—now remains

To list what other sorrows she so young

Must bear from Here!—Inachus's child,

O thou!—drop down thy soul, my weighty words,

And measure thence the landmarks which are set,

To end thy wandering! Toward the orient sun

First turn thy face from mine, and journey on

Along the desert flats, till thou shalt come

Where Scythia's shepherd peoples dwell aloft,

Perched in wheeled wagons under woven roofs,

And twang the rapid arrow past the bow—

Approach them not; but siding in thy course,

The rugged shore-rocks sounding from the sea,

Depart that country. On the left hand dwell

The iron-workers, called the Chalybes,

Of whom beware! for certes they are stern,

And nowise bland to strangers. Reaching so

The stream Hybristes, (well the scorner called,)

Attempt no passage;—it is hard to pass.

Or ere thou come to Caucasus itself,

That highest of mountains,—where the river's strength

Is jutted from the heights—and thou must climb

Those mountain-tops that neighbor with the stars,

And tread the southward way, and near, at last,

The Amazonian host that hateth man,

Who shall inhabit Themiscyra, close

Upon Thermodon, where the sea's rough jaw

Doth gnash at Salmydessa, and provide

A cruel host to seamen, and to ships

A stepdame harsh! The same shall lead thee on

With unreluctant hand, till thou shalt drive

Just where the ocean gates show narrowest,