Swift the ripple ripples follow’d, as of aureate Helicon, Down their flanks, while they impatient pawed desire of the distances, And the bit with fury champed.  Oh! unimaginable delight!  Unimagined speed and splendour in the circle of upper air!  Glory grander than the armed host upon earth singing victory!  Chafed the youth with their spirit surcharged, as when blossom is shaken by winds, Marked that labour by his sister Phaethontiades finished, quick On the slope of the car his forefoot set assured:  and the morning rose:  Seeing whom, and what a day dawned, stood the God, as in harvest fields, When the reaper grasps the full sheaf and the sickle that severs it:  Hugged the withered head with one hand, with the other, to indicate (If this woe might be averted, this immeasurable evil), Laid the kindling course in view, told how the reins to manipulate:  Named the horses fondly, fearful, caution’d urgently betweenwhiles:  Their diverging tempers dwelt on, and their wantonness, wickedness, That the voice of Gods alone held in restraint; but the voice of Gods; None but Gods can curb.  He spake:  vain were the words:  scarcely listening, Mounted Phaethon, swinging reins loose, and, ’Behold me, companions, It is I here, I!’ he shouted, glancing down with supremacy; ’Not to any of you was this gift granted ever in annals of men; I alone what only Gods can, I alone am governing day!’ Short the triumph, brief his rapture:  see a hurricane suddenly Beat the lifting billow crestless, roll it broken this way and that; — At the leap on yielding ether, in despite of his reprimand, Swayed tumultuous the fire-steeds, plunging reckless hither and yon; Unto men a great amazement, all agaze at the Troubled East:- Pitifully for mastery striving in ascension, the charioteer, Reminiscent, drifts of counsel caught confused in his arid wits; The reins stiff ahind his shoulder madly pulled for the mastery, Till a thunder off the tense chords thro’ his ears dinned horrible.  Panic seized him:  fled his vision of inviolability; Fled the dream that he of mortals rode mischances predominant; And he cried, ’Had I petitioned for a cup of chill aconite, My descent to awful Hades had been soft, for now must I go With the curse by father Zeus cast on ambition immoderate.  Oh, my sisters!  Thou, my Goddess, in whose love I was enviable, From whose arms I rushed befrenzied, what a wreck will this body be, That admired of thee stood rose-warm in the courts where thy mysteries Celebration had from me, me the most splendidly privileged!  Never more shall I thy temple fill with incenses bewildering; Not again hear thy half-murmurs—­I am lost!—­never, never more.  I am wrecked on seas of air, hurled to my death in a vessel of flame!  Hither, sisters!  Father, save me!  Hither, succour me, Cypria!’

Now a wail of men to Zeus rang:  from Olympus the Thunderer Saw the rage of the havoc wide-mouthed, the bright car superimpending Over Asia, Africa, low down; ruin flaming over