Page:Prometheus Bound, and other poems.djvu/50

44 Of my soul's power to look beyond the veil

Of visible things. The rest, to you and her,

I will declare in common audience, nymphs,

Returning thither where my speech brake off.

There is a town Canobus, built upon

The earth's far margin, at the mouth of Nile,

And on the mound washed up by it!—Io, there

Shall Zeus give back to thee thy perfect mind,

And only by the touch and by the stroke

Of his undreadful hand! and thou shalt bear

A dusky son to Zeus, who shall be called

Thence, Epaphus, the Touched! That son shall pluck the fruit

From all that land wide-watered by the flow

Of flooding Nile,—and, counting from his life

The fifth full generation,—which involves

Full fifty maidens, a fair woman-race,

Shall back to Argos turn reluctantly,

To fly the proffered nuptials of their kin,

Their father's brother's. But they, passion-struck,

Like falcons bearing hard on flying doves,

Shall drive on, hunting on that quarry of love

They should not hunt—till envious Heaven shall lay

A curse betwixt that beauty and their desire,

And Greece receive them, to be overcome

In murtherous woman-war, by fierce red hands,

Round which the night keeps watch. For every wife

Shall slay her husband, dyeing deep in blood

The sword of double edges—(now do I wish

As fair a marriage-joy to all my foes!)

One bride alone shall fail to smite to death

The head upon her pillow, touched with love,