Classic Poem

AS PARTAN 'scaping from the fight,
His mother met him in his flight,
Upheld a faulchion to his breast,
And thus the fugitive address'd:
" Thou canst but live to blot with shame
Indelible thy mother's name,
While ev'ry breath that thou shalt draw,
Offends against thy country's law;
But, if thou perish by this hand,
Myself indeed throughout the land
To my dishonour shall be known
The mother still of such Ason,
But Sparta will be safe and free,
And that shall serve to comfort me. "