Page:Tragedies of Euripides (Way 1894) v1.djvu/59

Rh To some, I wot, not wise herein I seem,

Nor wilt thou praise: but mine halls have not learnt

To thrust away nor to dishonour guests.

Halls thronged of the guests ever welcome, O dwelling

Of a hero, for ever the home of the free,

The Lord of the lyre-strings sweet beyond telling,

Apollo, hath deignèd to sojourn in thee.

Amid thine habitations, a shepherd of sheep,

The flocks of Admetus he scorned not to keep,

While the shepherds' bridal-strains, soft-swelling

From his pipe, pealed over the slant-sloped lea.

And the spotted lynxes for joy of thy singing

Mixed with thy flocks; and from Othrys' dell

Trooped tawny lions: the witchery-winging

Notes brought dancing around thy shell,

Phœbus, the dappled fawn from the shadow

Of the tall-tressed pines tripping forth to the meadow,

Beating time to the chime of the rapture-ringing

Music, with light feet tranced by its spell.

Wherefore the flocks of my lord unnumbered

By the Bœbian mere fair-rippling stray:

Where the steeds of the sun halt, darkness-cumbered,

By Molossian marches, far away

The borders lie of his golden grain,

And his rolling stretches of pasture-plain;

And the havenless beach Aegean hath slumbered

Under Pelion long 'neath the peace of his sway.