Page:Tragedies of Sophocles (Plumptre 1878).djvu/530

432 Daily each night and morn

It winds through all the wide and fair champaign,

And pours its flood new-born

From the clear freshets of the fallen rain;

The Muses scorn it not,

But here, rejoicing, their high feast-days hold,

And here, in this blest spot,

Dwells Aphrodite in her car of gold.

And here hath grown long while

A marvel and a wonder such as ne'er

I heard of otherwhere,—

Nor in great Asia's land nor Dorian Isle

That Pelops owned as his;

Full great this marvel is,—

A plant unfailing, native to the place,

Terror to every sword

Of fierce invading horde,

The grey-green Olive, rearing numerous race,

Which none or young or old

Shall smite in pride o'erbold;

For still the orb of Zeus that all things sees

Looks on it from on high,

Zeus, the great guardian of our olive-trees,

And she, Athena, with grey gleaming eye.

And yet another praise,

The chiefest boast of this our mother state,

My tongue must now relate,

The gift of that great God who ocean sways;—

Of this our native ground

The greatest glory found,