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184 are awful from their weird grotesqueness; these Furies, as they dance with every gesture of greedy hatred, are even more awful in their solemn determination.

Haste we now the dance to wind,

Since beseems in dread refrain,

To utter how our bodeful train

Deal the lots to mortal kind.

Loyal are we to the Right,—

Hence clean hands whoso extendeth,

Scathless still through life he wendeth,

Nor on him our wrath may light.

But who guilty hands doth hide,

Stained with blood,—as yonder wight,—

Lurketh ever at his side,

Witness true, this Brood of Night.

Blood-avengers we appear,

Stern-purposed to achieve our doom severe.

Oh mother, hear me, Mother Night,

Who brought me forth, a living dread,

To scare the living and the dead,

Latona's son does me despite;—

Stealing away my trembling prey,

Destined a mother's murder to requite.

Now o'er the victim lift the dread refrain,

The Furies' death-hymn, madness-fraught;—

Torch of the brain, from Hades brought,—

Soul-binding, lyreless, mortal-blighting strain.