“Oak and olive and bay,—­I bid you cease to en-wreathe
Brows made bold by your leaf!  Fade at the Persian’s foot, 50
You that, our patrons were pledged, should never adorn a slave! 
Rather I hail thee, Parnes, deg.—­trust to thy wild waste tract! deg.52
Treeless, herbless, lifeless mountain!  What matter if slacked
My speed may hardly be, for homage to crag and to cave
No deity deigns to drape with verdure?—­at least I can breathe,
Fear in thee no fraud from the blind, no lie from the mute!”

Such my cry as, rapid, I ran over Parnes’ ridge;
Gully and gap I clambered and cleared till, sudden, a bar
Jutted, a stoppage of stone against me, blocking the way. 
Right! for I minded the hollow to traverse, the fissure across:  60
“Where I could enter, there I depart by!  Night in the fosse? 
Athens to aid?  Tho’ the dive were thro’ Erebos, deg. thus I obey—­ deg.62
Out of the day dive, into the day as bravely arise!  No bridge
Better!”—­when—­ha! what was it I came on, of wonders that are?

There, in the cool of a cleft, sat he—­majestical Pan! 
Ivy drooped wanton, kissed his head, moss cushioned his hoof;
All the great God was good in the eyes grave-kindly—­the curl
Carved on the bearded cheek, amused at a mortal’s awe
As, under the human trunk, the goat-thighs grand I saw. 
“Halt, Pheidippides!”—­halt I did, my brain of a whirl:  70
“Hither to me!  Why pale in my presence?”! he gracious began: 
“How is it,—­Athens, only in Hellas, holds me aloof?

“Athens, she only, rears me no fane, makes me no feast! 
Wherefore?  Than I what godship to Athens more helpful of old? 
Ay, and still, and forever her friend!  Test Pan, trust me! 
Go bid Athens take heart, laugh Persia to scorn, have faith
In the temples and tombs!  Go, say to Athens, ’The Goat-God saith: 
When Persia—­so much as strews not the soil—­Is cast in the sea,
Then praise Pan who fought in the ranks with your most and least,
Goat-thigh to greaved-thigh, made one cause with the free and the bold!’ 80

“Say Pan saith:  ‘Let this, foreshowing the place, be the pledge!’”
(Gay, the liberal hand held out this herbage I bear
—­Fennel,—­I grasped it a-tremble with dew—­whatever it bode),
“While, as for thee...”  But enough!  He was gone.  If I ran hitherto—­
Be sure that the rest of my journey, I ran no longer, but flew. 
Parnes to Athens—­earth no more, the air was my road;
Here am I back.  Praise Pan, we stand no more on the razor’s edge! 
Pan for Athens, Pan for me!  I too have a guerdon rare!

* * * * *