Erechtheus | Page 9

whose hollow mouth of storm
Is but a warlike wind, a sharp
salt breath
That bites and wounds not; death nor life of mine
Shall
give to death or lordship of strange kings 720 The soul of this live city,
nor their heel
Bruise her dear brow discrowned, nor snaffle or goad

Wound her free mouth or stain her sanguine side
Yet masterless of
man; so bid thy lord
Learn ere he weep to learn it, and too late

Gnash teeth that could not fasten on her flesh,
And foam his life out
in dark froth of blood
Vain as a wind's waif of the loud-mouthed sea

Torn from the wave's edge whitening. Tell him this;
Though thrice
his might were mustered for our scathe 730 And thicker set with fence
of thorn-edged spears
Than sands are whirled about the wintering
beach
When storms have swoln the rivers, and their blasts
Have
breached the broad sea-banks with stress of sea,
That waves of inland
and the main make war
As men that mix and grapple; though his
ranks
Were more to number than all wildwood leaves
The wind
waves on the hills of all the world,
Yet should the heart not faint, the
head not fall,
The breath not fail of Athens. Say, the Gods 740 From
lips that have no more on earth to say

Have told thee this the last
good news or ill
That I shall speak in sight of earth and sun
Or he

shall hear and see them: for the next
That ear of his from tongue of
mine may take
Must be the first word spoken underground
From
dead to dead in darkness. Hence; make haste,
Lest war's fleet foot be
swifter than thy tongue
And I that part not to return again
On him
that comes not to depart away 750 Be fallen before thee; for the time is
full,
And with such mortal hope as knows not fear
I go this high last
way to the end of all.
CHORUS.
Who shall put a bridle in the mourner's lips to chasten
them, [_Str._ 1. Or seal up the fountains of his tears for shame?
Song
nor prayer nor prophecy shall slacken tears nor hasten them, Till grief
be within him as a burnt-out flame;
Till the passion be broken in his breast
And the might thereof molten
into rest,
And the rain of eyes that weep be dry, 760 And the breath
be stilled of lips that sigh.
Death at last for all men is a harbour; yet
they flee from
it, [_Ant._ 1. Set sails to the storm-wind and again to sea;
Yet for all
their labour no whit further shall they be from it, Nor longer but
wearier shall their life's work be.
And with anguish of travail until night
Shall they steer into shipwreck
out of sight,
And with oars that break and shrouds that strain
Shall
they drive whence no ship steers again.
Bitter and strange is the word
of the God most high, [_Str._ 2. 770
And steep the strait of his way.
Through a pass rock-rimmed and
narrow the light that gleams On the faces of men falls faint as the dawn
of dreams,
The dayspring of death as a star in an under sky
Where night is the dead men's day.
As darkness and storm is his will
that on earth is done, [_Ant._ 2.

As a cloud is the face of his strength.
King of kings, holiest of holies,
and mightiest of might, Lord of the lords of thine heaven that are
humble in thy sight, Hast thou set not an end for the path of the fires of
the sun, 780
To appoint him a rest at length?
Hast thou told not by measure the
waves of the waste wide
sea, [_Str._ 3. And the ways of the wind their master and thrall to thee?
Hast thou filled not the furrows with fruit for the
world's increase?
Has thine ear not heard from of old or thine eye not
read The thought and the deed of us living, the doom of us dead?
Hast thou made not war upon earth, and again made peace? Therefore,
O father, that seest us whose lives are a
breath, [_Ant._ 3. Take off us thy burden, and give us not wholly to
death.
For lovely is life, and the law wherein all things live, 790 And gracious
the season of each, and the hour of its kind, And precious the seed of
his life in a wise man's mind;
But all save life for his life will a base man give. But a life that is given
for the life of the whole live
land, [_Str._ 4. From a heart unspotted a gift of a spotless hand,
Of
pure will perfect and free, for the land's life's sake, What man shall fear
not to put forth his hand and take? For the fruit of a sweet life plucked
in its pure green
prime [_Ant._ 4. On his hand who plucks is as blood, on his soul as