Page:Electra of Euripides (Murray 1913).djvu/47

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What ails thine eyes, old friend? After these years

Doth my low plight still stir thy memories?

Or think'st thou of Orestes, where he lies

In exile, and my father? Aye, long love

Thou gavcst him, and seest the fruit thereof

Wasted, for thee and all who love thee!

All

Wasted I And yet 'tis that lost hope withal

I cannot brook. But now I turned aside

To see my master's grave. All, far and wide,

Was silence; so I bent these knees of mine

And wept and poured drink-offerings from the wine

I bear the strangers, and about the stone

Laid myrtle sprays. And, child, I saw thereon

Just at the censer slain, a fleecèd ewe,

Deep black, in sacrifice: the blood was new

About it: and a tress of bright brown hair

Shorn as in mourning, close. Long stood I there

And wondered, of all men what man had gone

In mourning to that grave.—My child, 'tis none

In Argos. Did there come Nay, mark me now

Thy brother in the dark, last night, to bow

His head before that unadorèd tomb?

O come, and mark the colour of it. Come

And lay thine own hair by that mourner's tress!

A hundred little things make likenesses

In brethren born, and show the father's blood.