Page:Agamemnon (Murray 1920).djvu/61

vv. 986–1009.

Since the day those shoreward-thrown

Cables flapped and line on line

Standing forth for Ilion

The long galleys took the brine.

And in harbour—mine own eye

Hath beheld—again they lie;

Yet that lyreless music hidden

Whispers still words of ill,

'Tis the Soul of me unbidden,

Like some Fury sorrow-ridden,

Weeping over things that die.

Neither waketh in my sense

Ever Hope's dear confidence;

For this flesh that groans within,

And these bones that know of Sin,

This tossed heart upon the spate

Of a whirpool that is Fate,

Surely these lie not. Yet deep

Beneath hope my prayer doth run,

All will die like dreams, and creep

To the unthought of and undone.

—Surely of great Weal at the end of all

Comes not Content; so near doth Fever crawl,

Close neighbour, pressing hard the narrow wall.

—Woe to him who fears not fate!

'Tis the ship that forward straight

Sweepeth, strikes the reef below;

He who fears and lightens weight,