Page:Four Plays of Aeschylus (1908) Morshead.djvu/202

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Ah, fear us not! as friends, with rivalry

Of swiftly-vying wings, we came together

Unto this rock and thee!

With our sea-sire we pleaded hard, until

We won him to our will,

And swift the wafting breezes bore us hither.

The heavy hammer's steely blow

Thrilled to our ocean-cavern from afar,

Banished soft shyness from our maiden brow,

And with unsandalled feet we come, in wingèd car!

Ah well-a-day! ye come, ye come

From the Sea-Mother's teeming home—

Children of Tethys and the sire

Who around Earth rolls, gyre on gyre,

His sleepless ocean-tide!

Look on me—shackled with what chain,

Upon this chasm's beetling side

I must my dismal watch sustain!

Yea, I behold, Prometheus! and my fears

Draw swiftly o'er mine eyes a mist fulfilled of tears,

When I behold thy frame

Bound, wasting on the rock, and put to shame

By adamantine chains!

The rudder and the rule of Heaven

Are to strange pilots given: