Page:Four Plays of Aeschylus (Cookson).djvu/223

Rh Finally, let him fling my form

Down whirling gulfs, the central storm

Of being; let me lie

Plunged in the black Tartarean gloom;

Yet—yet—his sentence shall not doom

This deathless self to die!

These are the workings of a brain

More than a little touched; the vein

Of voluble ecstasy!

Surely he wandereth from the way,

His reason lost, who thus can pray!

A mouthing madman he!

Therefore, O ye who court his fate,

Rash mourners,—ere it be too late

And ye indeed are sad

For vengeance spurring hither fast,—

Hence! lest the bellowing thunderblast

Like him should strike you mad!

Words which might work persuasion speak

If thou must counsel me; nor seek

Thus, like a stream in spate,

To uproot mine honour. Dost thou dare

Urge me to baseness! I will bear

With him all blows of fate;

For false forsakers I despise;

At treachery my gorge doth rise:—

I spew it forth with hate!

Only,—with ruin on your track,—

Rail not at fortune: but look back