Wrangham.
Phœbus, thou know'st me—Eunomus, who beat
Spartis: the tale for others I repeat;
Deftly upon my lyre I played and sang,
When 'mid the song a broken harp-string rang,
And seeking for its sound, I could not hear
The note responsive to my descant clear.
Then on my lyre, unasked, unsought, there flew
A grasshopper, who filled the cadence due;
For while six chords beneath my fingers cried,
He with his tuneful voice the seventh supplied:
The midday songster of the mountains set
His pastoral ditty to my canzonet;
And when he sang, his modulated throat
Accorded with the lifeless strings I smote.
Therefore I thank my fellow-minstrel: he
Sits on a lyre in brass, as you may see.
The sculptor's country? Sicyon. His name?
Lysippus. You? Time, that all things can tame.
Why thus a-tiptoe? I have halted never.
Why ankle-winged? I fly like wind forever.
But in your hand that razor? 'Tis a pledge
That I am keener than the keenest edge.
Why falls your hair in front? For him to bind
Who meets me. True: but then you're bald behind?
Yes, because when with winged feet I have passed
'Tis vain upon my back your hands to cast.
Why did the sculptor carve you? For your sake
Here in the porch I stand; my lesson take.
My snowy marble from the mountain rude
A Median sculptor with sharp chisel hewed,
And brought me o'er the sea, that he might place
A trophied statue of the Greeks' disgrace.
But when the routed Persians heard the roar
Of Marathon, and ships swam deep in gore,
Then Athens, nurse of heroes, sculptured me
The queen that treads on arrogance to be:
I hold the scales of hope: my name is this—
Nike for Greece, for Asia Nemesis.
Bright Cytherea thought one day
To Cnidos she'd repair,
Gliding across the watery way
To view her image there.
But when, arrived, she cast around
Her eyes divinely bright,
And saw upon that holy ground
The gazing world's delight,
Amazed, she cried—while blushes told
The thoughts that swelled her breast—
Where did Praxiteles behold
My form? or has he guessed?