Page:The poems of Edmund Clarence Stedman, 1908.djvu/258

POEMS OF GREECE Nor when the white-horsed car of Eôs ran up to Zeusward,—

Nor when the twittering chickens looked to their nest, and the mother

Over her smoky perch at eve had fluttered her pinions,—

So might the lad be featly trained to his heart's own liking,

And, with himself for guide, grow up a genuine hero.

Now when it chanced that Jason, the son of Æson, went sailing

After the Golden Fleece, and with him followed the nobles,—

Picked from all the towns and ripe for that service,—among them

Also to rich Iôlkos came the laboring hero,

He that was son of Alcmêne,—the heroine of Midea;

By his side went Hylas down to the bulwarked Argo,—

Which good ship the clashing Cyanean rocks in no wise

Touched, but clove as an eagle,—and so ran into deep Phasis,—

Clove through a mighty surge, whence low reefs jutted in those days.

So at the time when the Pleiads rise,—and out-of-way places

Pasture the youngling lamb, and Spring has turned,—the immortal

Flower of heroes began of their voyage then to be mindful,

And, having sat them down again in the hollow Argo,

Came to the Hellespont, a south wind blowing, the third day,

And within the Propontis their anchorage made,—where oxen

Broaden Ciánian furrows afield, and brighten the ploughshare.

There stepping out on the beach they got the meal of the evening,

Two by two; and many were strewing a couch for them all, since 228