Breeze, breeze of the sea,
Who the wave-passers bearest home
Swift and unwearied o'er the billows' foam,
Ah! whither lead'st thou me
Grief-worn? whose house must have
This thing - a captured slave?

Or shall I reach a harbor strand
Dorian of Phthian, where they tell
Apidanos o'erstreams the land,
Father of fairest founts that well?

Or else some island shore,
Urged, wretched, on my way with brine-splashed oar,
To lead a life of weary sorrow there,
Where the first palm bare fruit,
Where the bay raised each sacred shoot
To form a bower,
Leto's protection in her trial of hour?

Or shall I, like Delian maiden,
Sing of Artemis divine,
Golden-filleted, bow-laden?
Or at Pallas' sacred shrine
The steeds to her fair chariot yoke
To bear her, clad in saffron cloak,
And braid the silken garments thin
With saffron flowerets woven in?

Or shall I sing the Titan brood,
Whom Zeus, great Kronos' son,
Poured twice-forged fire upon,
And did to lasting sleep by that fell bolt and rude?

Ah, sorrow for the young,
For those whose life was long,
For all the land,
A heap of smoking ruin,
Spear-pierced to her undoing
By Argive hand!

And I shall be a slave
Within a country not my own,
Leaving the land that Europe has o'erthrown,
'Scaping the chambers of the grave.