Erechtheus | Page 8

sea.
Of this hoary-headed woe [_Epode._ Song made memory long ago;

Now a younger grief to mourn
Needs a new song younger born.

Who shall teach our tongues to reach
What strange height of saddest
speech,
For the new bride's sake that is given to be
A stay to fetter
the foot of the sea, 630 Lest it quite spurn down and trample the town,

Ere the violets be dead that were plucked for its crown,

Or its olive-leaf whiten and wither?
Who shall say of the wind's way

That he journeyed yesterday,
Or the track of the storm that shall
sound to-morrow, If the new be more than the grey-grown sorrow?

For the wind of the green first season was keen,
And the blast shall be
sharper than blew between
That the breath of the sea blows hither. 640
HERALD OF EUMOLPUS.
Old men, grey borderers on the march of death,
Tongue-fighters,
tough of talk and sinewy speech,
Else nerveless, from no crew of
such faint folk
Whose tongues are stouter than their hands come I

To bid not you to battle; let them strike
Whose swords are sharper
than your keen-tongued wail,
And ye, sit fast and sorrow; but what
man
Of all this land-folk and earth-labouring herd
For heart or hand
seems foremost, him I call
If heart be his to hearken, him bid forth
650 To try if one be in the sun's sight born
Of all that grope and
grovel on dry ground
That may join hands in battle-grip for death

With them whose seed and strength is of the sea.
CHORUS.
Know thou this much for all thy loud blast blown,
We lack not hands
to speak with, swords to plead,
For proof of peril, not of boisterous
breath,
Sea-wind and storm of barren mouths that foam
And rough
rock's edge of menace; and short space
May lesson thy large
ignorance and inform 660 This insolence with knowledge if there live

Men earth-begotten of no tenderer thews
Than knit the great joints
of the grim sea's brood
With hasps of steel together; heaven to help,

One man shall break, even on their own flood's verge,
That iron
bulk of battle; but thine eye
That sees it now swell higher than sand
or shore
Haply shall see not when thine host shall shrink.
HERALD OF EUMOLPUS.

Not haply, nay, but surely, shall not thine.
CHORUS.
That lot shall no God give who fights for thee. 670
HERALD OF EUMOLPUS.
Shall Gods bear bit and bridle, fool, of men?
CHORUS.
Nor them forbid we nor shalt thou constrain.
HERALD OF EUMOLPUS.
Yet say'st thou none shall make the good lot mine?
CHORUS.
Of thy side none, nor moved for fear of thee.
HERALD OF EUMOLPUS.
Gods hast thou then to baffle Gods of ours?
CHORUS.
Nor thine nor mine, but equal-souled are they.
HERALD OF EUMOLPUS.
Toward good and ill, then, equal-eyed of soul?
CHORUS.
Nay, but swift-eyed to note where ill thoughts breed.
HERALD OF EUMOLPUS.

Thy shaft word-feathered flies yet far of me.
CHORUS.
Pride knows not, wounded, till the heart be cleft. 680
HERALD OF EUMOLPUS.
No shaft wounds deep whose wing is plumed with words.
CHORUS.
Lay that to heart, and bid thy tongue learn grace.
HERALD OF EUMOLPUS.
Grace shall thine own crave soon too late of mine.
CHORUS.
Boast thou till then, but I wage words no more.
ERECHTHEUS.
Man, what shrill wind of speech and wrangling air
Blows in our ears
a summons from thy lips
Winged with what message, or what gift or
grace
Requiring? none but what his hand may take
Here may the
foe think hence to reap, nor this
Except some doom from Godward
yield it him. 690
HERALD OF EUMOLPUS.
King of this land-folk, by my mouth to thee
Thus saith the son of him
that shakes thine earth,
Eumolpus; now the stakes of war are set,

For land or sea to win by throw and wear;
Choose therefore or to quit
thy side and give
The palm unfought for to his bloodless hand,
Or
by that father's sceptre, and the foot
Whose tramp far off makes
tremble for pure fear
Thy soul-struck mother, piercing like a sword


The immortal womb that bare thee; by the waves 700 That no man
bridles and that bound thy world,
And by the winds and storms of all
the sea,
He swears to raze from eyeshot of the sun
This city named
not of his father's name,
And wash to deathward down one flood of
doom
This whole fresh brood of earth yeaned naturally,
Green yet
and faint in its first blade, unblown
With yellow hope of harvest; so
do thou,
Seeing whom thy time is come to meet, for fear
Yield, or
gird up thy force to fight and die. 710
ERECHTHEUS.
To fight then be it; for if to die or live,
No man but only a God knows
this much yet
Seeing us fare forth, who bear but in our hands
The
weapons not the fortunes of our fight;
For these now rest as lots that
yet undrawn
Lie in the lap of the unknown hour; but this
I know,
not thou,