Philoctetes
Come with me ; for my painful wound
Requires thy friendly hand to help me onward.
Since proud Ixion, doomed to feel
The tortures of th' eternal wheel.
Bound by the hand of angry Jove,
Received the due rewards of impious love ;
Ne'er was distress so deep or woe so great
Who ever with the just and good,
Guiltless of fraud and rapine, stood,
And the fair paths of virtue still pursued ;
Alone on this inhospitable shore,
Where waves for ever beat and tempests roar,
How could he e'er or hope or comfort know,
Or painful life support beneath such weight of woe ?
Exposed to the inclement skies,
Deserted and forlorn he lies,
No friend or fellow-mourner there
To soothe his sorrows and divide his care,
Or seek the healing plant of power to 'suage
His aching wound and mitigate its rage ;
But if perchance, awhile released
From torturing pain, he sinks to rest.
Awakened soon, and by sharp hunger prest,
Compelled to wander forth in search of food.
He crawls in anguish to the neighbouring wood ;
Even as the tottering infant in despair
Who mourns an absent mother's kind supporting care,
The teeming earth, who mortals still supplies
With every good, to him her seed denies ;
A stranger to the joy that flows
From the kind aid which man on man bestows ;
Nor food, alas ! to him was given,
Save when his arrows pierced the birds of heaven ;
Nor e'er did Bacchus' heart-expanding bowl
For ten long years relieve his cheerless soul ;
But glad was he his eager thirst to slake
In the unwholesome pool, or ever-stagnant lak^.
But now, behold the joyful captive freed ;
A fairer fate, and brighter days succeed :
For he at last hath found a friend
Of noblest race, to save and to defend.
To guide him with protecting hand,
And safe restore him to his native land ;
On Sperchius' flowery banks to join the throng
Of Melian nymphs, and lead the choral song
On CEta's top, which saw Alcides rise,
And from the flaming pile ascend his native skies,
