Leonidas, King

From Heracles immortal line sprang Kings of Agiad The blood of Gods and heroes in mortal flesh thus clad And such was Leonidas, half brother to the King Cleomenes of Sparta, of whom the poets sing When came the call to Athens aid when none would take the stand Leonidas Spartan stood, three hundred by his hand ‘We will take and hold the field against the Persian hordes At Thermopylae prepared to die, we greet them with the sword.’ Thespian and Theban heard and rallied to the call Their phalanx in the narrow pass an impenetrable wall. Xerxes watched the waves of men diffuse against the might, as Grecian stalwart heroes held, until the loss of light. For two full days the Pass they held, whilst facing fearful odds, until undone by Ephialtes, betrayer of the Gods. Across the hills by mountain path were the valiant undone And Leonidas understood the rearguard shield was gone He called the valiant to his side and marked his standing stone Let thespians and Thebans turn, here Sparta stands alone Three hundred stood in scarlet lines their valiant death to wait and leave the field upon their shields as every Spartans fate Thus fell Leonidas King, who stood when none else dared Defending Athens and all Greece lest dishonour ensnared Remembered in the halls of Zeus with victors laurels bound Three hundred stood three hundred fell and sanctified the ground And thus the Delphic Oracle’s foretelling came to pass That all of Sparta be destroyed or else King Leonidas One year upon Plataea’s fields, with the final battle won Remembered every Grecian heart this noble Spartan son