Page:Four Plays of Aeschylus (Cookson).djvu/56

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My heart's blood eddies turbulent and black.

And this last touch of bitterest irony

Things in themselves untoward do not lack,

That all my father's lookings forth to sea

My feet enmesh;

'Tis I for fear have well nigh ceased to be.

I would about my neck a noose were bound;

I would that there the fated shaft were found

Winged with the wished-for liberty;

Ere flesh from amorous flesh

Recoiling feel the touch abhorred,

I would that I were dead and Hades had for lord.

Oh for a throne in stainless air

Where the moist and dripping cloud

Touches and is turned to snow.

Oh for a smooth and slippery rock

Where the wild goat fears to climb

And no intruding son of Time

Points a finger. Lone and bare

And wrapped in contemplation proud

It o'erhangs the gulf below;

There lean vultures flap and flock;

And, as if indeed it were

A living spirit, its blind wall

Shall bear record of my fall

Headlong—all my sorrows ending

And heartless love which is heart's rending.

Then, I grudge not dogs their prey;

Then, this body of mine shall feast

Birds that haunt the valley grounds.

There's no anguish in such wounds: