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Thine heart was whelmed beneath this woe,

Nor turn thy wrath aside to ban

The name of Helen, nor recall

How she, one bane of many a man,

Sent down to death the Danaan lords,

To sleep at Troy the sleep of swords,

And wrought the woe that shattered all.

Fiend of the race! that swoopest fell

Upon the double stock of Tantalus,

Lording it o'er me by a woman's will,

Stern, manful, and imperious—

A bitter sway to me!

Thy very form I see,

Like some grim raven, perched upon the slain,

Exulting o'er the crime aloud in tuneless strain!

Right was that word—thou namest well

The brooding race-fiend, triply fell!

From him it is that murder's thirst,

Blood-lapping, inwardly is nursed—

Ere time the ancient scar can sain,

New blood comes welling forth again.

Grim is his wrath and heavy on our home,

That fiend of whom thy voice has cried—

Alas, an omened cry of woe unsatisfied,

An all-devouring doom.

Ah woe, ah Zeus! from Zeus all things befall—

Zeus the high cause and finisher of all!—