LXX
by Percy Bysshe Shelley
· (no date)
Published 01/07/1880
Part of Hymn to Mercury, translated from the Greek of Homer
He might as well have bound the oxen wild;
The withy bands, though starkly interknit,
Fell at the feet of the immortal child,
Loosened by some device of his quick wit.
Phoebus perceived himself again beguiled,
And stared—while Hermes sought some hole or pit,
Looking askance and winking fast as thought,
Where he might hide himself and not be caught.