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HYMN 4. DELOS, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Windy and waste and battered by the sea
Last Line: But rooted in the aegean waves your feet.
Alternate Author Name(s): Kallimachos
Subject(s): Delos (island), Greece


WINDY and waste and battered by the sea,
More apt for speed of gull than horse, stands she
Fast in the waves, and from the surge that brims
Around her of Icarian water skims
The clotted foam: wherefore upon her ground
Homes of seafaring fishermen are found.
No grudging matter if the poet styles
Her eminent, whene'er the assembled isles
To Ocean and to Titan Tethys take
Their way: she marches foremost. In her wake
Follow Phoenician Cyrnus, land of fame,
Abantian Macris, heir of Ellops' name,
Sardinia, island of delight, and she
Whom Cypris swam to, rising from the sea,
And gave protection as her landing-fee.
Strong in their sheltering watch-towers are they all,
But Delos in Apollo; and what wall
Can be more stedfast? Battlement and rock
Beneath Strymonian Boreas' tempest-shock
May tumble down. A God can never yield.
Such is your champion, Delos, and your shield.
So many a wreath of circling song you wear,
What shall I weave you, welcome to your ear?
How a great god in the beginning swayed
His weapon triple-pronged, Telchinian-made,
And split the mountains, causing isles to be,
Levered them up, and rolled them out to sea?
He rooted their foundations in the deep,
No memory of the continent to keep;
But you, by no necessity controlled,
Floated the waters freely, and of old
Were named Asteria, -- Star that would not wed
With Zeus, but leapt gulfward from heaven and fled.
Still unto you no golden Leto came;
Asteria still, not Delos, was your name.
Sailors from holy Troezen, on the way
To Ephyra, in the Saronic bay
Would often sight you, and from Ephyra back
Sailing they saw you not, nor marked your track
Up the loud rapid of Euripus' Strait.
Nor there in Chalcian waters did you wait
Daylong, but swimming or to Sunium's crest
Athenian, or to Chios, or the breast,
Lapped by the billows, of the Maiden Isle,
(For Samos yet it was not,) there awhile
Over against Ancaeus' shore, the guest
Of Mycalessid Nymphs, you chose to rest.
But when for Phoebus' birth you gave your ground,
Your altered name by mariners was found,
Because no longer dimly did you fleet
But rooted in the AEgean waves your feet.





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