Loft in the brightnefs of returning day,
The gloomy terrors of the night decay;
When Jove commands the Sun of Joy to rise,
And opens into finiles the cloud-invelop'd skies.
STROPHE II.
Thy hapless daughters' various fate
This moral truth, O Cadmus, shows;
Who vefted now with god-like state
On heavenly thrones repofe;
And yet Affliction's thorny road
In bitter anguish once they trod.
But blifs fuperior hath eras'd
The memory of their woe;
While Semele, on high Olympus plac’u,
To heavenly zephyrs bids her treffes flow,
Once by devouring lightnings all defac'd.
There, with immortal charms improv'd,
Inhabitant of Heaven's ferene abodes
She dwells, by virgin Pallas lov'd,
Lov'd by Saturnius, father of the gods;
Lov'd by her youthful fon, whofe brows divine,
In twifting ivy bound, with joy eternal shine.
ANTIS TROPHE II.
To Ino, Goddess of the Main,
The Fates an equal lot decree,
Rank'd with old Ocean's Nereid train,
Bright daughters of the fea.
Deep in the pearly realms below,
Immortal happiness to know.
But here our day's appointed end
To mortals is unknown;
Whether diftrefs our period fhall attend,
And in tumultuous ftorms our fun go down,
Or to the shades in peaceful calms descend.
For various flows the tide of life,
Obnoxious ftill to Fortune's veering gale;
Now rough with anguish, care, and strife,
O'erwhelming waves the shatter'd bark affail :
Now glide ferene and smooth the limpid streams;
And on the furface play Apollo's golden beams.
E PODE II.
Thus, Fate, O Theron, that with blifs divine
And glory once enrich'd thy ancient line,
Again reverfing every gracious deed,
Woe to thy wretched fires and shame decreed;
What time, encountering on the Phocian plain,
By luckless Oedipus was Laius flain.
To parricide by Fortune blindly led,
His father's precious life the hero fhed;
Doom'd to fulfill the oracles of heaven,
To Thebes' ill-deftin'd king by Pythian Phoebus given.
STROPHE III.
But with a fierce avenging eye'
Erinnys the foul murder view'd,
And bade his warring offspring die,
By mutual rage fubdued.
Pierc'd by his brother's hateful steel
Thus haughty Polynices fell.
Therfander, born to calmer days,
Surviv'd his falling fire,
In youthful games to win immortal praise ;
Renown in martial combats to acquire,
And high in power th' Adraftian house to raise
Forth from this venerable root
Ænefidamus and his Theron fpring;
For whom I touch my Dorian flute,
For whom triumphant strike my founding string.
Due to his glory is th' Aonian strain,
Whofe virtue gain'd the prize in fam'd Olympia's plain,
ANTISTROPHE III.
Alone in fam'd Olympia's fand
The victor's chaplet Theron wore;
But with him on the Ifthmian frand,
On fweet Caftalia's fhore,
The verdant crowns, the proud reward
Of victory, his brother shar'd,
Copartner in immortal praise,
As warm'd with equal zeal
The light-foot courfer's generous breed to raises
And whirl around the goal the fervid wheel.
The painful ftrife Olympia's wreath repays :
But wealth with nobler virtue join'd
The means and fair occafions must procure;
In glory's chace must aid the mind,
Expence, and toil, and danger to endure;
With mingling rays they feed each other's flame, And shine the brightest lamp in all the sphere of fame.
The happy mortal, who these treasures shares, Well knows what fate attends his generous cares; Knows, that beyond the verge of life and light, In the fad regions of infernal night,
The fierce, impracticable, churlish mind
Avenging gods and penal woes shall find;
Where ftri& inquiring justice shall bewray
The crimes committed in the realms of day.
Th' impartial Judge the rigid law declares,
No more to be revers'd by penitence or prayers.
STROPHE IV.
But in the happy fields of light,
Where Phoebus with an equal ray
Illuminates the balmy night,
And gilds the cloudless day,
In peaceful, unmolested joy,
The good their fmiling hours employ.
Them no uneafy wants constrain
To vex th' ungrateful foil,
To tempt the dangers of the billowy main,
And break their strength with unabating toil,
A frail difaftrous being to maintain.
But in their joyous calm abodes,
The recompence of justice they receive;
And in the fellowship of gods
While, banish'd by the Fates from joy and rest, Intolerable woes the impious foul infest.
ANTIS TROPHE IV.
But they who, in true virtue strong,
The third purgation can endure;
And keep their minds from fraudful wrong
And guilt's contagion pure;
They through the starry paths of Jove
To Saturn's blifsful feat remove;
Where fragrant breezes, vernal airs,
Sweet children of the main,
Purge the bleft island from corroding cares,
And fan the bofom of each verdant plain :
Whofe fertile foil immortal fruitage bears;
Trees, from whofe flaming branches flow
Array'd in golden bloom refulgent beams;
And flowers of golden hue, that blow On the fresh borders of their parent streams. Thefe, by the bleft in folemn triumph worn, Their unpolluted hands and clustering locks adorn
Such is the righteous will, the high behest,
Of Rhadamanthus, ruler of the bleft;
The juft affeffor of the throne divine,
On which, high rais`d above all gods, recline,
Link'd in the golden bands of wedded love,
The great progenitors of thundering Jove.
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