Page:Four Plays of Aeschylus (Cookson).djvu/137

Rh Of all Poseidon Lord of Earth

Poureth or Tethys' children speed.

Therefore, ye Gods, that are our stay,

Yonder without the wall

Send havoc;—with slaughter and casting away

Of shields, when slain men fall:

But dismiss not our prayers unheard, disowned,

Our lamentable cry entoned:

Save us and win for our land renown;

Then reign within the walled town

Unshakeably enthroned!

Sorrow it were thus to send down to hell a city coeval with grandeurs of old

Captive and spoil of an enemy spear, 'mid the crumbling of ashes;

her store and her gold

Sacked by the Achaean as things of no worth, unregarded of Heaven;

sore sorrow it were

Should mother and matron and maiden and bride as a horse by the forelock

be haled by the hair

With rending of raiment. Loud, loud is the voice of a city made empty:

her children's farewells—

As they go to their ruin—confused with exultings; and heavy the doom that

my fear foretells.

Woe for the lawless reaping of unripe corn; for the rape of the bride unwed,

For the far strange home and the long, long way to it, travelled with hate,

she must tread!

Nay, of a truth, where dead men dwell, there is more of bliss; for with multiple ills

When a city is taken man visiteth man; he leads away captive, he spills