Page:Sophocles - Seven Plays, 1900.djvu/282

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I fail. Ye cowering creatures of the sky,

Oh, as ye fly,

Snatch me, borne upward on the blast’s sharp breath!

. Thou child of misery!

No mightier power hath this decreed,

But thine own will and deed

Hath bound thee thus in grief,

Since, when kind Heaven had sent relief

And shown the path of wisdom firm and sure,

Thou still hast chosen this evil to endure.

. O hapless life, sore bruised with pain!

No more with living mortal may I dwell,

But ever pining in this desert cell

With lonely grief, all famished must remain

And perish; for what food is mine to share,

When this strong arm no longer wields my bow,

Whose fleet shafts flew to smite the birds of air

I was o’erthrown by words, words dark and blind,

Low-creeping from a traitorous mind!

O might I see him, whose unrighteous thought

This ruin wrought,

Plagued for no less a period with like woe!

. Not by our craft thou art caught,

But Destiny divine hath wrought

The net that holds thee bound.

Aim not at us the sound

Of thy dread curse with dire disaster fraught.

On others let that light! ’Tis our true care

Thou should’st not scorn our love in thy despair.

. Now, seated by the shore

Of heaving ocean hoar,

He mocks me, waving high

The sole support of my precarious being,

The bow which none e’er held but I.

O treasure of my heart, torn from this hand,

That loved thy touch,—if thou canst understand,

How sad must be thy look in seeing

Thy master destined now no more,

Like Heracles of yore,