Page:Four Plays of Aeschylus (1908) Morshead.djvu/108

78 And all night long the captains of the fleet

Kept their crews moving up and down the strait.

So the night waned, and not one Grecian ship

Made effort to elude and slip away.

But as dawn came and with her coursers white

Shone in fair radiance over all the earth,

First from the Grecian fleet rang out a cry,

A song of onset! and the island crags

Re-echoed to the shrill exulting sound.

Then on us Eastern men amazement fell

And fear in place of hope; for what we heard

Was not a call to flight! the Greeks rang out

Their holy, resolute, exulting chant,

Like men come forth to dare and do and die!

Their trumpets pealed, and fire was in that sound,

And with the dash of simultaneous oars

Replying to the war-chant, on they came,

Smiting the swirling brine, and in a trice

They flashed upon the vision of the foe!

The right wing first in orderly advance

Came on, a steady column; following then,

The rest of their array moved out and on,

And to our ears there came a burst of sound,

A clamour manifold.—On, sons of Greece!

''On, for your country's freedom! strike to save''

Wives, children, temples of ancestral gods,

''Graves of your fathers! now is all at stake.''

Then from our side swelled up the mingled din

Of Persian tongues, and time brooked no delay—

Ship into ship drave hard its brazen beak

With speed of thought, a shattering blow! and first

One Grecian bark plunged straight, and sheared away

Bowsprit and stem of a Phoenician ship.

And then each galley on some other's prow

Came crashing in. Awhile our stream of ships