Such are the words of Hermes: such the praise,
O Naiads, which from tongues coelestial waits
Your bounteous deeds. From bounty issueth power:
And those who, sedulous in prudent works,
Relieve the wants of nature, Jove repays
With generous wealth and his own seat on earth,
Fit judgments to pronounce, and curb the might
Of wicked men. Your kind unfailing urns
Not vainly to the hospitable arts
Of Hermes yield their store. For, O ye Nymphs,
Hath he not won the unconquerable queen
Of arms to court your friendship? You she owns
The fair associates who extend her sway
Wide o'er the mighty deep; and grateful things
Of you she uttereth, oft as from the shore
Of Thames, or Medway's vale, or the green banks
Of Vecta, she her thundering navy leads
To Calpe's foaming channel, or the rough
Cantabrian coast; her auspices divine
Imparting to the senate and the prince
Of Albion, to dismay barbaric kings,
The Iberian, or the Celt. The pride of kings
Was ever scorn'd by Pallas: and of old
Rejoic'd the virgin, from the brazen prow
Of Athens o'er Aegina's gloomy surge,
To drive her clouds and storms; o'erwhelming all
The Persian's promis'd glory, when the realms
Of Indus and the soft Ionian clime,
When Lybia's torrid champain and the rocks
Of cold Imaüs join'd their servile bands,
To sweep the sons of liberty from earth.
In vain: Minerva on the brazen prow
Of Athens stood, and with the thunder's voice
Denounc'd her terrours on their impious heads,
And shook her burning Aegis. Xerxes saw:
From Heracleum, on the mountain's highth
Thron'd in his golden car, he knew the sign
Coelestial; felt unrighteous hope forsake
His faltering heart, and turn'd his face with shame.