Not distant far, Arcadia's blest domains Peloponnesus' circling shore contains: Thrice happy soil! where, still serenely gay, Indulgent Flora breathed perpetual May; Where buxom Ceres bade each fertile field Spontaneous gifts in rich profusion yield: Then, with some rural nymph supremely blest, While transport glow'd in each enamour'd breast, Each faithful shepherd told his tender pain, 240 And sung of sylvan sports in artless strain; Soft as the happy swain's enchanting lay That pipes among the shades of Endermay. Now, sad reverse! oppression's iron hand Enslaves her natives, and despoils her land; In lawless rapine bred, a sanguine train, With midnight ravage, scour the uncultured plain. Westward of these, beyond the Isthmus, lies The long-sought isle of Ithacus the wise; Where fair Penelope, of him deprived, 250 To guard her honour endless schemes contrived: She, only shielded by a stripling son, Her lord Ulysses long to Ilion gone, Each bold attempt of suitor-kings repell'd, And undefiled her nuptial contract held; True to her vows, and resolutely chaste, Met arts with art, and triumph'd at the last. Argos, in Greece forgotten and unknown, Still seems her cruel fortune to bemoan; Argos, whose monarch led the Grecian hosts 260 Across the Ægean main to Dardan coasts: Unhappy prince! who, on a hostile shore, Fatigue and danger ten long winters bore; And when to native realms restored at last, To reap the harvest of thy labours past, There found a perjured friend, and faithless wife, Who sacrificed to impious lust thy life; Fast by Arcadia stretch these desert plains, And o'er the land a gloomy tyrant reigns. Next, Macronisi is adjacent seen, 270 Where adverse winds detain'd the Spartan queen; For whom, in arms combined, the Grecian host, With vengeance fired, invaded Phrygia's coast; For whom so long they labour'd to destroy The lofty turrets of imperial Troy; Here, driven by Juno's rage, the hapless dame, Forlorn of heart, from ruin'd Ilion came: The port an image bears of Parian stone, Of ancient fabric, but of date unknown. Due east from this appears the immortal shore, 280 That sacred Phoebus and Diana bore-- Delos! through all the Ægean seas renown'd, Whose coast the rocky Cyclades surround; By Phoebus honour'd, and by Greece revered, Her hallow'd groves even distant Persia fear'd: But now a desert unfrequented land, No human footstep marks the trackless sand. Thence to the north, by Asia's western bound, Fair Lemnos stands, with rising marble crown'd;