Page:Four Plays of Aeschylus (1908) Morshead.djvu/117

Rh O Earth, and Hermes, and the king

Of Hades, our Darius bring!

For if, beyond the prayers we prayed,

He knoweth aught of help or aid,

He, he alone, in realms below,

Can speak the limit of our woe!

Doth he hear me, the king we adored, who is god among gods of the dead?

Doth he hear me send out in my sorrow the pitiful, manifold cry,

The sobbing lament and appeal? is the voice of my suffering sped

To the realm of the shades? doth he hear me and pity my sorrowful sigh?

O Earth, and ye Lords of the dead! release ye that spirit of might,

Who in Susa the palace was born! let him rise up once more to the light!

There is none like him, none of all

That e'er were laid in Persian sepulchres!

Borne forth he was to honoured burial,

A royal heart! and followed by our tears.

God of the dead, O give him back to us,

Darius, ruler glorious!

He never wasted us with reckless war—

God, counsellor, and king, beneath a happy star!

Ancient of days and king, awake and come—

Rise o'er the mounded tomb!

Rise, plant thy foot, with saffron sandal shod

Father to us, and god!

Rise with thy diadem, O sire benign,

Upon thy brow!

List to the strange new sorrows of thy line,

Sire of a woeful son!