Page:Oedipus, King of Thebes (Murray 1911).djvu/20

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O Oedipus, who boldest in thy hand

My city, thou canst see what ages stand

At these thine altars; some whose little wing

Scarce flieth yet, and some with long living

O’erburdened; priests, as I of Zeus am priest,

And chosen youths: and wailing hath not ceased

Of thousands in the market-place, and by

Athena’s two-fold temples and the dry

Ash of Ismênus’ portent-breathing shore.

For all our ship, thou see’st, is weak and sore

Shaken with storms, and no more lighteneth

Her head above the waves whose trough is death.

She wasteth in the fruitless buds of earth,

In parchèd herds and travail without birth

Of dying women: yea, and midst of it

A burning and a loathly god hath lit

Sudden, and sweeps our land, this Plague of power;

Till Cadmus’ house grows empty, hour by hour,

And Hell’s house rich with steam of tears and blood.

O King, not God indeed nor peer to God

We deem thee, that we kneel before thine hearth,

Children and old men, praying; but of earth

A thing consummate by thy star confessed

Thou walkest and by converse with the blest;

Who came to Thebes so swift, and swept away

The Sphinx’s song, the tribute of dismay,

That all were bowed beneath, and made us free.

A stranger, thou, naught knowing more than we,

Nor taught of any man, but by God’s breath

Filled, thou didst raise our life. So the world saith;

So we say.