ELDER. CLYTAEMESTRA ELDER. What courier could arrive thus rapidly? CLYT. Hephaestus; his bright flame from Ida sprang, And fast in fiery post the beacons flew, As one dispatched another: Ida first To Hermes' hill in Lemnos; third the mount Of Zeus in Athos caught the mighty brand From the island thrown in turn. Then towering high To clear the broad sea's back, the travelling torch Shot up to the very sky the courier flame, In golden glory, like another sun, Fame to the far Makistos messaging: Whose fiery office no defaulting sleep Or tarrying sloth let fail; his ensign flying Over the Sound Euripos made aware Messapion's watchmen of his advent; they With answering countersign, a kindled stack Of old gray heather, passed the word along: Which vigorous lamp with unabated force Did shining as the bright Moon overleap Asopos even to Cithaeron's ridge, There to wake new dispatch; nor being aroused That watch denied the far-sent missioner; They burned above their bidding, and their light Went sailing far beyond Gorgopis' lake To the heights of AEgiplanctus, urging still No dallying in the breathless ordinance. Whereat with liberal heart aloft they sent Flame in a great beard streaming, that his flight Should clean beyond the foreland pass, that looks O'er the Saronic gulf; nor ever stooped His pinion ere he gained our neighbouring height, Arachnae's vigilant peak: alighting thence Upon the Atridae's roof a gleam there came, That Ida's fire his ancestor may claim. This was the ordering of my torchmen's race, One from another in succession still Supplied and plenished; and he that won Was he @3ran first@1, though last in all this run. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...ODES IV, 7. TO TORQUATUS. DIFFUGERE NIVES by QUINTUS HORATIUS FLACCUS THE OLD SCHOOL HOUSE by ALEXANDER ANDERSON THE HAYSWATER BOAT by MATTHEW ARNOLD THE LAST MAN: CONCEALED JOY by THOMAS LOVELL BEDDOES THE LAST MAN: KISSES by THOMAS LOVELL BEDDOES CAFE TORTONI ('81) by WILLIAM ROSE BENET |