Who, the tempestuous winter o'er,
Returning quiet gives to reign,
When the retreating clouds restore 15
Light to thy blessed house again. 13
The gifts that mark Heaven's favouring care,
With brighter grace the prudent bear.
Round thee wealth flows in copious tide;
Whose feet the paths of justice tread; 20
Whose potent empire, far and wide,
Is over numerous cities spread.
The fairest charms of royal sway,
Prudence and majesty combined,
In thee their genuine marks display, 25
Whose eye declares a kindred mind.
Now happy in thy recent fame,
Won in th' equestrian Pytho's game;
This pomp displaying hymn is thine,
Which leads Apollo's sport divine. [1] 29 30
Nor thou, great king, forget the lays
That celebrate Cyrene's praise;
Cyrene, round whose fertile soil
The charms of lovely Venus smile.
Ascribe the whole to God above, 35
And more than all Carrhotus' love! [2]
Who not to Battus' royal court,
Where Justice and her train resort,
Convey'd Excuse, with glozing tongue, [3]
- ↑ Απολλωνιον Θυρμα. The Roman Ludi Apollinares.
- ↑ The charioteer of Arcesilaus.
- ↑ Epimetheus, the fabled brother of Prometheus, married Pandora, and_thus introduced all kinds of evil among mankind. Excuse or Negligence was the daughter of the former, as Prudence sprang-from the latter. This passage of Pindar will perhaps bring to the recollection of the reader a similar one in Milton: (Par. Lost, ix. 853:)—
"In her face excuse
Came prologue, and apology too prompt."
