Page:Agamemnon (Murray 1920).djvu/56

38 Weeping the beacon-piles that watched for thee

For ever answerless. And did I dream,

A gnat's thin whirr would start me, like a scream

Of battle, and show me thee by terrors swept,

Crowding, too many for the time I slept.

From all which stress delivered and free-souled,

I greet my lord: O watchdog of the fold,

O forestay sure that fails not in the squall,

O strong-based pillar of a towering hall;

O single son to a father age-ridden;

O land unhoped for seen by shipwrecked men;

Sunshine more beautiful when storms are fled;

Spring of quick water in a desert dead.

How sweet to be set free from any chain!

These be my words to greet him home again.

No god shall grudge them. Surely I and thou

Have suffered in time past enough! And now

Dismount, O head with love and glory crowned,

From this high car; yet plant not on bare ground

Thy foot, great King, the foot that trampled Troy.

Ho, bondmaids, up! Forget not your employ,

A floor of crimson broideries to spread

For the King's path. Let all the ground be red

Where those feet pass; and Justice, dark of yore,

Home light him to the hearth he looks not for!

What followeth next, our sleepless care shall see

Ordered as God's good pleasure may decree.