Page:Suppliant Maidens (Morshead) 1883.djvu/63

Rh

High thanks, my children, unto Argos con,

And to this folk, as to Olympian gods,

Give offerings meet of sacrifice and wine;

For saviours are they in good sooth to you.

From me they heard, and bitter was their wrath,

How those your kinsmen strove to work you wrong,

And how of us were thwarted: then to me

This company of spearmen did they grant,

That honoured I might walk, nor unaware

Die by some secret thrust and on this land

Bring down the curse of death, that dieth not.

Such boons they gave me: it behoves me pay

A deeper reverence from a soul sincere.

Ye, to the many words of wearinesswariness [sic]

Spoken by me your father, add this word,

That, tried by time, our unknown company

Be held for honest: over-swift are tongues

To slander strangers, over-light is speech

To bring pollution on a stranger's name.

Therefore I rede you, bring no shame on me

Now when man's eye beholds your maiden prime.

Lovely is beauty's ripening harvest-field,

But ill to guard; and men and beasts, I wot,

And birds and creeping things make prey of it.

And when the fruit is ripe for love, the voice

Of Aphrodite bruiteth it abroad,

The while she guards the yet unripened growth.

On the fair richness of a maiden's bloom