Page:Four Plays of Aeschylus (Cookson).djvu/50

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Is over strangers. He alone

Maintains the right 'gainst wrong and crime,

And confirms to each his own

By law and precept gray with time.

Everything that fruitful is

Spring anew from fecund earth,

And may arrowy Artemis

Bring the struggling babe to birth.

Havoc, come not to rive this land;

Nor bring no arms for Ares' hand,

Who loveth neither dance nor lyre;

Children he hath at his desire

But they are tears: nor the drawn knife

Whet for the dagger-hand of strife

And civil uproar: keep far hence,

Ye croaking flocks of pestilence;

And all young things in this fair ground

Be with thy love, Lycean, crowned.

Zeus make the earth to teem, and bless

With seasonable toll and cess

Of gathered fruit and corn in shocks:

And may the forward-feeding flocks

In her rich pastures multiply:

And all things have prosperity

By the Gods' favour flourishing:

Let minstrels round her altars sing

Sweet lauds; and while the lute leads on

Pure lips send up their orison.