Page:Four Plays of Aeschylus (Cookson).djvu/73

Rh

Asia, their nursing mother, mourns;

And day succeeds to day,

And wives and little ones lose heart,

Sighing the time away.

I grant you that our royal host,

The walléd city's scourge,

Hath long since reached the neighbour coast

That frowns across the surge;

Hath roped with mooréd rafts the strait,

Their path the heaving deck,

At Athamantid Helle's Gate

Upon the sea's proud neck

Bolting a yoke from strand to strand:

And Asia's hordes, I grant,

Outnumber the uncounted sand:

Our king is valiant:

He shepherdeth a mighty flock,

God's benison therewith,

Till iron arms all Hellas lock,

Port, isle and pass and frith.

And at his word leap captains bold

Ready to do or die,

Being himself of the race of gold,

Equal with God most high.

The dragon-light of his black eyes

Darts awe, as to express

The lord of mighty argosies

And minions numberless.

So, seated in his Syrian car,

He leads 'gainst spear and pike

His sagittaries: death from far

Their wounding arrows strike.