III.

Homer forsakes the billowy round Of sailors circling o’er the island-sea; Pindar, from Theban fountains and the mound Builded in love and woe by doomed Antigone, Must pass beneath the ground; Stout Æschylus that slew the deep-haired Mede At Marathon, at Salamis, and freed Athens from Persian thrall, Then sung the battle call,— Must yield to that one foe he could not quell; In Gela’s flowery plain he slumbers well.[2] Sicilian roses bloom Above his nameless tomb; And there the nightingale doth mourn in vain For Bion, too, who sung the Dorian strain; By Arethusa’s tide, His brother swains might flute in Dorian mood,— The bird of love in thickets of the wood Sing for a thousand years his grave beside— Yet Bion still was mute—the Dorian lay had died.

Footnote 2:

Athenian Æschylus Euphorion’s son, Buried in Gela’s field these _words_ declare: His _deeds_ are registered at Marathon, Known to the deep-haired Mede who meet him there. —_Greek Anthology._