Page:The poems of Edmund Clarence Stedman, 1908.djvu/273

ALECTRYON Black currents bear us down the noisome wave

That leads to Hades, till the vessel sink

In Stygian waters, none the less our souls

Shall gain the farther shore, and, hand in hand,

Walk from the strand across Elysian fields,

'Mong happy thronging shades, that point and say:

And she, his wife, most faithful unto death!"

ALECTRYON

Arês, whose tempestuous godhood found

Delight in those thick-tangled solitudes

Of Hebrus-watered tracts of rugged Thrace,—

Great Arês, scouring the Odrysian wilds,

There met Alectryôn, a Thracian boy,

Stalwart beyond his years, and swift of foot

To hunt from morn till eve the white-toothed boar.

With that of Hæmian nymph, to make thy form

So fair, thy soul so daring, and thy thews

So lusty for the contest on the plains

Wherein the fleet Odrysæ tame their steeds?"

From that time forth the twain together chased

The boar, or made their coursers cleave the breadth

Of yellow Hebrus, and, through vales beyond,

Drove the hot leopard foaming to his lair.

And day by day Alectryôn dearer grew

To the God's restless spirit, till from Thrace

He bore him, even to Olympos; there

Before him set immortal food and wine,

That fairer youth and lustier strength might serve

His henchman; bade him bear his arms, and cleanse

The crimsoned burnish of his brazen car:

So dwelt the Thracian youth among the Gods.

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