And the young boy, loosed in sun-dappled groves, Defiant, chased the droning harvest-fly, Or nicked pomegranates with his ruddy thumb Ripe from the bough; nor would his mother chide, But with strange awe hang o’er him worshipping, As one that turns with passionate-praying lips East to the Delian shrine he shall not see: Save once, when he a turtle-pigeon pent In wicker-work of some swart soldier’s skill, With lisping promise aye to nourish it; And stroked his plaining bird for one long day, But on the morrow ceased his fostering, And left his captive caged, the tiny gourd Of water unreplenished. Then the child Bewailed his darling, lying stiff and mute; And Æthra held his innocent hand in hers With solemn lessoning; for she foresaw Remorse, and irremediable ache, And ruin, following him whose manhood swerves To the eased byways of forgetfulness. She, his hot brows caressing, so besought The weeping prince: ‘If thou, O little son! Wilt lay hereafter duties on thyself, Stand mindful of them; all thy vows observe. Be a trust broken but a small, small thing, Its possible shadow slaves this world in woe.’ And ere the dial veered, did Æthra speak His vanished father’s name and gave the charge, And led him to the rock, and in him fired The aspirations of his godlike race. Lost quite to former pastimes, thenceforth he Brooded on her sweet chronicle; and oft Burst thro’ arcades and vaporous aisles of dawn, And stood, flushed in the rubious dimpling light, Straining his thews at sunrise, to cajole The granite treasurer of those tokens twain: With his young heel intrenched in faithless sand, His cloud of yellow hair hanging before, Tugged at the flint; or pressed his forward knee With obdurate sieges, into its hard side; Anon, with restful rosy stretch of limb, Plunged to the onset, hound-like, on all fours, Beating a moated way about that place Where the grim guardian held a fixèd foot; And ever, noon on noon, with petulant tears, Stole back, o’ervanquished, to his quiet nooks. There would he woo his mother’s frequent tale, And urge her gentle prophecy, that he The kinsman of great Herakles, should too Rise, mighty, and o’er earth’s fell odds prevail. Wherefore, at waking-time, he plucked up heart To wrestle with the pitiless rock anew, Season on season, patient. And behold, When the tenth summer’s delicate keen dews Died from his shoreward path, at last befell One sure petrean tremor, one weird shock At his tense vigor; and ere twilight failed, Clean to the sea’s verge rolled that doughty bulk! And Theseus, in his full inheritance, In the superb meridian of his youth, Sandalled, the great hilt hard against his breast, Climbed to his mother’s bower. Æthra laid