Page:Sophocles - Seven Plays, 1900.djvu/274

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. I will not.

. You will kill me. Let me go!

. Well, thou know’st best. I hold thee not.

. O Earth,

I die: receive me to thy breast! This pain

Subdues me utterly; I cannot stand.

. Methinks he will be fast in slumber soon.

That head sinks backward, and a clammy sweat

Bathes all his limbs, while from his foot hath burst

A vein, dark-bleeding. Let us leave him, friends,

In quietness, till he hath fallen to sleep.

Lord of the happiest life,

Sleep, thou that know’st not strife,

That know’st not grief,

Still wafting sure relief,

Come, saviour, now!

Thy healing balm is spread

Over this pain-worn head;

Quench not the beam that gives calm to his brow.

Look, O my lord, to thy path,

Either to go or to stay:

How is my thought to proceed?

What is our cause for delay?

Look! Opportunity’s power,

Fitting the task to the hour,

Giveth the race to the swift.

. He hears not. But I see that to have ta’en

His bow without him were a bootless gain.

He must sail with us. So the god hath said.

Heaven hath decreed this garland for his head:

And to have failed with falsehood were a meed

Of shameful soilure for a shameless deed.

. God shall determine the end:—

But for thine answer, friend,

Waft soft words low!

All sick men’s sleep, we know,