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Yet sets He in array

No forces violent;

All that God works is elfortless and calm:

Seated on loftiest throne,

Thence, though we know not how,

He works His perfect will."

There is much in these songs of the Chorus that reminds us of the Hebrew poetry. They exhibit the same intermingling of general statements about the ways of God and the nature of man with particular applications to the immediate occasion, while their form closely resembles the "parallel" structure of the Jewish writings. The Chorus is divided into two bands, which answer one another in strophe and antistrophe. One band sings a stanza, and then rests while the other, in a corresponding stanza, utters a somewhat similar sentiment, repeating sometimes the same words, and always using the same metre, music, and measure of the dance. And in the "Suppliants" these points are particularly noticeable, for the chorus predominates here more than in any other of our poet's dramas. Hence it has been thought to be one of his earliest, written when the dialogue had not yet acquired its full prominence on the stage; and even if other evidence makes this doubtful, yet certainly we have in this play a return to the older style.

But the long choric song comes to an end; and now Danaus, who has hitherto been waiting in suppliant posture at the foot of the statues of the gods which stand upon the stage, addresses his daughters, and calls them to come and take a position near him, within the