Page:A Book of Czech Verse.pdf/71



Spartans, from Thermopylae I run; Leonidas that sent me, as he died ” Then all have fallen? ” “As their homeland’s writ Had bidden them. Around, barbaric dead Lie heaped like mountains. Thence, on airy foot, Laconian glory speeds through Hellas’ land.” My son Agil ?” “Like bees that seek their hive, So flew a Persian spear within his breast ” My son he was a mortal. O ye gods Eternal, now I feel a mother’s joy.”

Why, so. Well spoken. Yet no blessing rests On me the courier, whom a sightless chance Has sentenced to this melancholy task, Compelled to leave my post. And whither now? To wander in the light of day, the spoil Of Hades, living on; and, for my lot, Contempt from all. And, when I die, unmourned, A lonely shade through Hades’ halls to stray; My comrades from the fight shall know me not, And shame will let me call to them no more.”