Page:Four Plays of Aeschylus (1908) Morshead.djvu/118

88 A mist of fate and hell is round us now,

And all the city's flower to death is done!

Alas, we wept thee once, and weep again!

O Lord of lords, by recklessness twofold

The land is wasted of its men,

And down to death are rolled

Wreckage of sail and oar,

Ships that are ships no more,

And bodies of the slain!

[The rises.

Ye aged Persians, truest of the true,

Coevals of the youth that once was mine,

What troubleth now our city? harken, how

It moans and beats the breast and rends the plain!

And I, beholding how my consort stood

Beside my tomb, was moved with awe, and took

The gift of her libation graciously.

But ye are weeping by my sepulchre,

And, shrilling forth a sad, evoking cry,

Summon me mournfully, Arise, arise.

No light thing is it, to come back from death,

For, in good sooth, the gods of nether gloom

Are quick to seize but late and loth to free!

Yet among them I dwell as one in power—

And lo, I come! now speak, and speed your words,

Lest I be blamed for tarrying overlong!

What new disaster broods o'er Persia's realm?

With awe on thee I gaze,

And, standing face to face,

I tremble as I did in olden days!