"Halt, Pheidippides!"--halt I did, my brain of a whirl: 70
"Hither to me! Why pale in my presence?"! he gracious began:
"How is it,--Athens, only in Hellas, holds me aloof?
"Athens, she only, rears me no fane, makes me no feast!
Wherefore? Than I what godship to Athens more helpful of old?
Ay, and still, and forever her friend! Test Pan, trust me!
Go bid Athens take heart, laugh Persia to scorn, have faith
In the temples and tombs! Go, say to Athens, 'The Goat-God saith:
When Persia--so much as strews not the soil--Is cast in the sea,
Then praise Pan who fought in the ranks with your most and least,
Goat-thigh to greaved-thigh, made one cause with the free and the bold!' 80
"Say Pan saith: 'Let this, foreshowing the place, be the pledge!'"
(Gay, the liberal hand held out this herbage I bear
--Fennel,--I grasped it a-tremble with dew--whatever it bode),
"While, as for thee..." But enough! He was gone. If I ran hitherto--
Be sure that the rest of my journey, I ran no longer, but flew.
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