Hear! for our ploughshare is sundering + 

The glebe-furrows of starry-eyed + 

Aphrodite, where Graces guide + 

Our feet drawing nigh to the shrine + 

At the navel of earth hollow-thundering, + 

Where for Emmenus’ heaven-blest line + 

And for Akragas’ city enfolden + 

By her river, and, more than all, + 

For Xenocrates, riseth the hall + 

Of a treasure-house song-upholden + 

In Apollo’s glen of the golden + 

Gifts gracing his temple-wall. + 

That treasure no rain-storm, hurling + 

Its pitiless hosts from the cloud + 

Amid thunders crashing loud + 

Shall sweep to abysses of sea + 

By the storm-wind with shingle-drift swirling; + 

But the porch of our treasury + 

In brightness unsullied shall flame, it + 

Shall publish the triumph afar, + 

Thrasybulus, won by thy car + 

In Krisa; and men shall acclaim it + 

For thy sire and thy kindred, shall name it + 

Their glory, their splendour-star. + 

At thy right hand thou settest him ever, + 

And so by the charge dost thou hold + 

Which of yore mid the hills, it is told. + 

To Achilles the child left lone + 

Did Philyra’s son deliver, + 

Unto Peleus’ mighty son: + 

“First of Abiders in Heaven + 

Kronion do thou adore + 

Lord of the thunder’s roar, + 

And be reverence alway given + 

Unto thy parents, even + 

To the end, till life be o’er.” + 

This selfsame spirit aforetime + 

Did mighty Antilochus bear: + 

For his father’s sake did he dare + 

That Aethiop chief’s death-stroke + 

When Memnon prevailed in the war-time. + 

For trammelled was Nestor’s yoke + 

By the steed on the red earth lying + 

By the arrow of Paris shot. + 

Ever nearer was havoc wrought + 

By the lance that Memnon was plying; + 

And the sire to his son spake, crying + 

For help, being terror-distraught. + 

That cry on the air was not wasted; + 

But withstanding a mightier alone, + 

His father’s life with his own + 

That godlike son redeemed, + 

And death’s cup of glory he tasted. + 

So in after days he seemed + 

To the sons of each new generation + 

In those old times bygone + 

Ever the noblest son + 

In filial love’s consecration. + 

Now⁠—by none out of any nation + 

Is Thrasybulus outdone + 

In the duty ordained of our fathers. + 

With his sire’s brother’s glory he vies, + 

Is in usance of wealth ever wise, + 

Nor in arrogance lawlessly + 

Grasps at youth’s pleasures, but gathers + 

Flower-wisdom of poesy + 

To the Muses’ hid garden ascending. + 

And he draweth nigh unto thee, + 

O Earth-shaker, Lord of the sea, + 

In thy chariot-contests contending. + 

More sweet is his guest-befriending + 

Than the celled honeycomb of the bee. + 