Page:Suppliant Maidens (Morshead) 1883.djvu/36

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Zeus, lord of kinship, rules at will

The swaying balance, and surveys

Evil and good; to men of ill

Gives evil, and to good men praise.

And thou—since true those scales do sway—

Shalt thou from justice shrink away?

A deep, a saving counsel here there needs—

An eye that like a diver to the depth

Of dark perplexity can pass and see,

Undizzied, unconfused. First must we care

That to the State and to ourselves this thing

Shall bring no ruin; next, that wrangling hands

Shall grasp you not as prey, nor we ourselves

Betray you thus embracing sacred shrines,

Nor make the avenging all-destroying god,

Who even in hell doth wreak him on the dead,

A grievous inmate, an abiding bane.

—Spake I aright, of saving counsel's need?

Yea, counsel take and stand to aid

At Justice' side and mine.

Betray not me, the timorous maid

Whom far beyond the brine

A godless violence cast forth forlorn.

O King, wilt thou behold—