Soiling my hoary hairs with dust and ashes commingled;Then will I hang stained sails fast-made to the wavering yard-arms,So shall our mourning thought and burning torture of spiritShow by the dark sombre-dye of Iberian canvas spread.But, grant me the grace Who dwells in Sacred Itone,(And our issue to guard and ward the seats of ErechtheusSware She) that if your right is besprent with blood of the Man-Bull,Then do you so-wise act, and stored in memory's heart-coreDwell these mandates of me, no time their traces untracing.Dip, when first shall arise our hills to gladden your eye-glance,Down from your every mast the ill-omened vestments of mourning,Then let the twisten ropes upheave the whitest of canvas,Wherewith splendid shall gleam the tallest spars of the top-mast,These seeing sans delay with joy exalting my spiritWell shall I wot boon Time sets you returning before me."Such were the mandates which stored at first in memory constantFaded from Theseus' mind like mists, compelled by the whirlwind,Fleet from aerial crests of mountains hoary with snow-drifts.But as the sire had sought the citadel's summit for outlook,Wasting his anxious eyes with tear-floods evermore flowing,Forthright e'en as he saw the sail-gear darkened with dye-stain,Headlong himself flung he from the sea-cliff's pinnacled summitHolding his Theseus lost by doom of pitiless Fortune.Thus as he came to the home funest, his roof-tree paternal,Theseus (vaunting the death), what dule to the maiden of MinosDealt with unminding mind so dree'd he similar dolour.She too gazing in grief at the kelson vanishing slowly,Self-wrapt, manifold cares revolved in spirit perturbed.ON ANOTHER PART OF THE COVERLETBut from the further side came flitting bright-faced Iacchus