Page:Medea (Webster 1868).djvu/80

 Flamed doubly fiercer when she tossed her locks,

And, conquered by her fate, she drops to the floor;

Scarce, but by her own father to be known:

For neither the grave sweetness of her eyes

Nor her fair face was visible; but blood

Mingled with flame was welling from her head,

And, by the secret poison gnawed, her flesh

Dropped from the bones, as resin-gouts from the fir—

Dreadful to see. And none dared touch the dead.

For her fate had we to our monitor.

But the hapless father, through his ignorance

Of how she perished, having ere we knew

Entered the chamber, falls upon the corse,

Breaks instant into wailing, and, her body

Enfolded in his clasp, he kisses her

Thus calling on her, "Oh unhappy child,

What god hath foully done thee thus to death?

Who makes this charnel heap of mouldering age

Thy childless mourner? Oh woe worth the while!

Would now that I might die with thee, my child."

But, when he stayed his sobbings and laments

And would have raised his aged body up,

He, as the ivy by the laurel's boughs,