Beyond the marshes stretched his power,
The shadow of a fenced tower
Flung wide o'er Helle's path;
It fell on cities fair that line
Propontis' inlet lacustrine
And stormy Pontus' strath.
His were the surf-beaten islands hard by us,
Where the thrust of the land lifts the wave-flung spray;
Lesbos and Paros and Naxos and Chios
And Samos, with oil of her olive-groves gray;
Myconus's earth paid toll to Darius;
Tenos-by-Andros acknowledged his sway.
Far from both shores, where the waters divide us,
Clasped in the mid-sea's ambient kiss,
Lemnos and Icarus' isle and Cnidus,
Paphos, Rhodes, Soloe were minions of his;
And thy namesake—thy parent—O thou, whose waves hide us,
Mother of mourning, Salamis!
The portion of Javan a wise moderation
Bound to his throne by her people's decrees;
Weariless then was the might of our nation;
Countless the swarm of her mercenaries;
But now in the day of God's sore visitation
We are tamed and chastised with the stripes of strong seas.
Enter Xerxes.
