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HYMNS OF HOMER.

HYMN TO MERCURY.

I.

SING, Muse, the son of Maia and of Jove,
The Herald-child, king of Arcadia

And all its pastoral hills, whom in sweet love
Having been interwoven, modest May
Bore Heaven's dread Supreme-an antique grove
Shadowed the cavern where the lovers lay
In the deep night, unseen by Gods or Men,
And white-armed Juno slumbered sweetly then.

II.

Now, when the joy of Jove had its fulfilling,
And Heaven's tenth moon chronicled her relief,
She gave to light a babe all babes excelling,
A schemer subtle beyond all belief;

A shepherd of thin dreams, a cow-stealing,

A night-watching, and door-waylaying thief, Who 'mongst the Gods was soon about to thieve, And other glorious actions to achieve.

III.

The babe was born at the first peep of day;
He began playing on the lyre at noon,

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Of mighty sounds, and from his lips he sent
A strain of unpremeditated wit
Joyous and wild and wanton—such you may
Hear among revellers on a holiday.

X.

He sung how Jove and May of the bright sandal
Dallied in love not quite legitimate;

And his own birth, still scoffing at the scandal,
And naming his own name, did celebrate;
His mother's cave and servant maids he planned all
In plastic verse, her household stuff and state,
Perennial pot, trippet, and brazen pan-
But singing he conceived another plan.

XI.

Seized with a sudden fancy for fresh meat,
He in his sacred crib deposited

The hollow lyre, and from the cavern sweet
Rushed with great leaps up to the mountain's

head,

Revolving in his mind some subtle feat

Of thievish craft, such as a swindler might
Devise in the lone season of dun night.

XII.

Lo! the great Sun under the ocean's bed has Driven steeds and chariot-the child mean

while strode

O'er the Pierian mountains clothed in shadows, Where the immortal oxen of the God

Are pastured in the flowering unmown meadows,
And safely stalled in a remote abode-
The archer Argicide, elate and proud,
Drove fifty from the herd, lowing aloud.

XIII.

He drove them wandering o'er the sandy way, But, being ever mindful of his craft, Backward and forward drove he them astray,

So that the tracks, which seemed before, were aft: His sandals then he threw to the ocean spray,

And for each foot he wrought a kind of raft
Of tamarisk, and tamarisk-like sprigs,
And bound them in a lump with withy twigs,

XIV.

And on his feet he tied these sandals light,
The trail of whose wide leaves might not betray
His track; and then, a self-sufficing wight,
Like a man hastening on some distant way,
He from Pieria's mountain bent his flight;
But an old man perceived the infant pass
Down green Onchestus, heaped like beds with grass.

XV.

The old man stood dressing his sunny vine:

"Halloo! Old fellow with the crooked shoulder! You grub those stumps? Before they will bear wine

Methinks even you must grow a little older :

Attend, I pray, to this advice of mine,

As you would 'scape what might appall a bolder Seeing, see not-and hearing, hear not-andIf you have understanding-understand."

XVI.

So saying, Hermes roused the oxen vast;
O'er shadowy mountain and resounding dell,
And flower-paven plains, great Hermes past;
Till the black night divine, which favouring fell
Around his steps, grew gray, and morning fast
Wakened the world to work, and from her cell,
Sea-strewn, the Pallantean Moon sublime
Into her watch-tower just began to climb.

XVII.

Now to Alpheus he had driven all

The broad-foreheaded oxen of the Sun; They came unwearied to the lofty stall

And to the water troughs which ever run Through the fresh fields-and when with rushgrass tall

Lotus and all sweet herbage, every one

Had pastured been, the Great God made them

move

Towards the stall in a collected drove.

XVIII.

A mighty pile of wood the God then heaped,
And having soon conceived the mystery

Of fire, from two smooth laurel branches stript The bark, and rubbed them in his palms,—on

high

Suddenly forth the burning vapour leapt,
And the divine child saw delightedly-
Mercury first found out for human weal
Tinder-box, matches, fire-irons, flint, and steel.

XIX.

And fine dry logs and roots innumerous
He gathered in a delve upon the ground-
And kindled them-and instantaneous

The strength of the fierce flame was breathed around:

And whilst the might of glorious Vulcan thus Wrapt the great pile with glare and roaring sound,

Hermes dragged forth two hiefers, lowing loud, Close to the fire-such might was in the God.

XX.

And on the earth upon their backs he threw
The panting beasts, and rolled them o'er and o'er,
And bored their lives out. Without more ado

He cut up fat and flesh, and down before
The fire on spits of wood he placed the two,

Toasting their flesh and ribs, and all the gore Pursed in the bowels; and while this was done He stretched their hides over a craggy stone.

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