Page:Memoir and poems of Phillis Wheatley, a native African and a slave.djvu/112

106 But while he strives the will of fate to avert,

Divine Apollo sends a second dart;

Swift through his throat the feathered mischief flies;

Bereft of sense, he drops his head and dies.

Young Iloneus, the last, directs his prayer,

And cries, "My life, ye gods celestial, spare."

Apollo heard, and pity touched his heart,

But ah! too late, for he had sent the dart:

Thou, too, oh Iloneus doomed to fall,

The fates refuse that arrow to recall.

On the swift wings of ever-flying Fame,

To Cadmus' palace soon the tiding came.

Niobe heard, and with indignant eyes

She thus expressed her anger and surprise:

"Why is such privilege to them allowed?

"Why thus insulted by the Delian god?

"Dwells there such mischief in the powers above?

"Why sleeps the vengeance of immortal Jove?"

For now Amphion, too, with grief oppressed,

Had plunged the deadly dagger in his breast.

Niobe now, less haughty than before,

With lofty head directs her steps no more.

She, who late told her pedigree divine,

And drove the Thebans from Latona's shrine,

How strangely changed! yet beautiful in woe,

She weeps, nor weeps unpitied by the foe.

On each pale corse the wretched mother, spread,

Lay overwhelmed with grief, and kissed her dead,

Then raised her arms, and thus, in accents slow,

"Be sated, cruel goddess, with my woe!

"If I've offended, let these streaming eyes,

"And let this seven-fold funeral suffice;