EPODE
In earliest Greece to thee with partial choice
The grief-full Muse addressed her infant tongue;
The maids and matrons on her awful voice,
Silent and pale, in wild amazement hung.
Yet he, the bard who first invoked thy name,
Disdained in Marathon its power to feel:
For not alone he nursed the poet's flame,
But reached from Virtue's hand the patriot's steel.
But who is he whom later garlands grace,
Who left awhile o'er Hybla's dews to rove,
With trembling eyes thy dreary steps to trace,
Where thou and Furies shared the baleful grove?
Wrapped in thy cloudy veil the incestuous queen
Sighed the sad call her son and husband heard,
When once alone it broke the silent scene,
And he, the wretch of Thebes, no more appeared.
O Fear, I know thee by my throbbing heart,
Thy withering power inspired each mournful line,
Though gentle Pity claim her mingled part,
Yet all the thunders of the scene are thine!
