Page:Frogs (Murray 1912).djvu/71

Rh Yea, words with plumes wild on the wind and with helmets a-glancing,

With axles a-splinter and marble a-shiver, eftsoons

Shall bleed, as a man meets the shock of a Thought-builder's prancing

Stanzas of dusky dragoons.

The deep crest of his mane shall uprise as he slowly unlimbers

The long-drawn wrath of his brow, and lets loose with a roar

Epithets welded and screwed, like new torrent-swept timbers

Blown loose by a giant at war.

Then rises the man of the Mouth; then battleward flashes

A tester of verses, a smooth and serpentine tongue,

To dissect each phrase into mincemeat, and argue to ashes

That high-towered labour of lung!

Pray, no advice to me! I won't give way;

I claim that I'm more master of my art.

You hear him, Aeschylus. Why don't you speak?

He wants to open with an awful silence—

The blood-curdling reserve of his first scenes.