Page:Prometheus Bound (Webster 1866).djvu/44

 Keep him from me, Earth! I tremble

Gazing on the herdsman myriad eyed.

Still with crafty look he follows,

Whom, even dead, earth cannot cover.

But from among the dead he passes out

To hound me down and drive me to and fro,

Hungering and wretched, on the seashore sands.

And still his wax-joined shrilling reed

Pipes to a sleepy strain.

Alas, alas for me! Oh whither lead

These wanderings o'er and o'er again?

Oh son of Kronos, how, how didst thou find me sin

That thou hast laid on me this yoke of woes?

And thus dost haraass me, poor wretch, crazed by the fear

Of the gadfly's maddening stings?

Oh! let fire consume me, or let the earth unclose

And hide me in,

Or let me be a prey to ravening monsters of the sea.

Deny not, oh deny not, lord, this prayer to me;

Enough have I been tried with many wanderings;

And nowhere find I means to learn how I may be