Erechtheus | Page 6

father with her same chaste fostering hand?Set for a sign against it in our guard?The holy bloom of the olive, whose hoar leaf?High in the shadowy shrine of Pandrosus?Hath honour of us all; and of this strife 460 The twelve most high Gods judging with one mouth?Acclaimed her victress; wroth whereat, as wronged?That she should hold from him such prize and place,?The strong king of the tempest-rifted sea?Loosed reinless on the low Thriasian plain?The thunders of his chariots, swallowing stunned?Earth, beasts, and men, the whole blind foundering world That was the sun's at morning, and ere noon?Death's; nor this only prey fulfilled his mind;?For with strange crook-toothed prows of Carian folk 470 Who snatch a sanguine life out of the sea,?Thieves keen to pluck their bloody fruit of spoil?From the grey fruitless waters, has their God?Furrowed our shores to waste them, as the fields?Were landward harried from the north with swords?Aonian, sickles of man-slaughtering edge?Ground for no hopeful harvest of live grain?Against us in Boeotia; these being spent,?Now this third time his wind of wrath has blown?Right on this people a mightier wave of war, 480 Three times more huge a ruin; such its ridge?Foam-rimmed and hollow like the womb of heaven,?But black for shining, and with death for life?Big now to birth and ripe with child, full-blown?With fear and fruit of havoc, takes the sun?Out of our eyes, darkening the day, and blinds?The fair sky's face unseasonably with change,?A cloud in one and billow of battle, a surge?High reared as heaven with monstrous surf of spears?That shake on us their shadow, till men's heads 490 Bend, and their hearts even with its forward wind?Wither, so blasts all seed in them of hope?Its breath and blight of presage; yea, even now?The winter of this wind out of the deeps?Makes cold our trust in comfort of the Gods?And blind our eye toward outlook; yet not here,?Here never shall the Thracian plant on high?For ours his father's symbol, nor with wreaths?A strange folk wreathe it upright set and crowned?Here where our natural people born behold 500 The golden Gorgon of the shield's defence?That screens their flowering olive, nor strange Gods?Be graced, and Pallas here have praise no more.?And if this be not I must give my child,?Thee, mine own very blood and spirit of mine,?Thee to be slain. Turn from me, turn thine eyes?A little from me; I can bear not yet?To see if still they smile on mine or no,?If fear make faint the light in them, or faith?Fix them as stars of safety. Need have we, 510 Sore need of stars that set not in mid storm,?Lights that outlast the lightnings; yet my heart?Endures not to make proof of thine or these,?Not yet to know thee whom I made, and bare?What manner of woman; had I borne thee man,?I had made no question of thine eyes or heart,?Nor spared to read the scriptures in them writ,?Wert thou my son; yet couldst thou then but die?Fallen in sheer fight by chance and charge of spears?And have no more of memory, fill no tomb 520 More famous than thy fellows in fair field,?Where many share the grave, many the praise;?But one crown shall one only girl my child?Wear, dead for this dear city, and give back life?To him that gave her and to me that bare,?And save two sisters living; and all this,?Is this not all good? I shall give thee, child,?Thee but by fleshly nature mine, to bleed?For dear land's love; but if the city fall?What part is left me in my children then? 530 But if it stand and thou for it lie dead,?Then hast thou in it a better part than we,?A holier portion than we all; for each?Hath but the length of his own life to live,?And this most glorious mother-land on earth?To worship till that life have end; but thine?Hath end no more than hers; thou, dead, shalt live?Till Athens live not; for the days and nights?Given of thy bare brief dark dividual life,?Shall she give thee half all her agelong own 540 And all its glory; for thou givest her these;?But with one hand she takes and gives again?More than I gave or she requires of thee.?Come therefore, I will make thee fit for death,?I that could give thee, dear, no gift at birth?Save of light life that breathes and bleeds, even I?Will help thee to this better gift than mine?And lead thee by this little living hand?That death shall make so strong, to that great end?Whence it shall lighten like a God's, and strike 550 Dead the strong heart of battle that would break?Athens; but ye, pray for this land, old men,?That it may bring forth never child on earth?To love it less, for none may more, than we.
CHORUS.
Out of the north wind grief came