O Iapetides, with pain I tell How you, sweet lyrist, in the riot fell: What worse than brutal rage his breast could fill Who did thy blood, O bard celestial! spill? Kindly you press’d amid the princely throng, To crown the feast, and give the nuptial song: Discord abhorr’d the music of thy lyre, Whose notes did gentle peace so well inspire: Thee when fierce Pettalus far off espied, Defenceless with thy harp, he scoffing cried, “Go, to the ghosts thy soothing lessons play; We loathe thy lyre, and scorn thy peaceful lay;” And, as again he fiercely bid him go, He pierced his temples with a mortal blow. His harp he held, though sinking on the ground, Whose strings in death his trembling fingers found, By chance, and tuned by chance a dying sound.