Page:Suppliant Maidens (Morshead) 1883.djvu/49

Rh And let the people's voice, the power

That sways the State, in danger's hour

Be wary, wise for all;

Nor honour in dishonour hold,

But—ere the voice of war be bold—

Let them to stranger peoples grant

Fair and unbloody covenant—

Justice and peace withal;

And to the Argive powers divine

The sacrifice of laurelled kine,

By rite ancestral, pay.

Among three words of power and awe,

Stands this, the third, the mighty law—

Your gods, your fathers deified,

Ye shall adore. Let this abide

For ever and for aye.

Dear children, well and wisely have ye prayed;

I bid you now not shudder, though ye hear

New and alarming tidings from your sire.

From this high place beside the suppliants' shrine

The bark of our pursuers I behold,

By divers tokens recognized too well.

Lo, the spread canvas and the hides that screen

The gunwale; lo, the prow, with painted eyes

That seem her onward pathway to descry,

Heeding too well the rudder at the stern

That rules her, coming for no friendly end.

And look, the seamen—all too plain their race—