Poetry Archives

None elder city doth the Sun behold
Than ancient Lycosura; ’twas begun
Ere Zeus the meat of mortals learned to shun,
And here hath he a grove whose haunted fold
The driven deer seek and huntsmen dread:  ’tis told
That whoso fares within that forest dun
Thenceforth shall cast no shadow in the Sun,
Ay, and within the year his life is cold!

Hard by dwelt he who, while the Gods deigned eat
At good men’s tables, gave them dreadful meat,
A child he slew:—his mountain altar green
Here still hath Zeus, with rites untold of me,
Piteous, but as they are let these things be,
And as from the beginning they have been!