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O ye Gods, it is yours to decree.

Ye call unto the dead; I quake to hear.

Fate is ordained of old, and shall fulfil your prayer.

Alas, the inborn curse that haunts our home,

Of Até's bloodstained scourge the tuneless sound!

Alas, the deep insufferable doom,

The stanchless wound!

It shall be stanched, the task is ours,—

Not by a stranger's, but by kindred hand,

Shall be chased forth the blood-fiend of our land.

Be this our spoken spell, to call Earth's nether powers!

Lords of a dark eternity,

To you has come the children's cry,

Send up from hell, fulfil your aid

To them who prayed.

O father, murdered in unkingly wise,

Fulfil my prayer, grant me thine halls to sway.

To me, too, grant this boon—dark death to deal

Unto Ægisthus, and to 'scape my doom.