Page:The Dramas of Aeschylus (Swanwick).djvu/475

Rh Yet is his heart's desire full hard to trace;

Nathless in every place

Brightly it gleameth, e'en in darkest night,

Fraught with black fate to man's speech-gifted race.

Stedfast, ne'er thrown in fight,

The deed in brow of Zeus to ripeness brought;

For wrapt in shadowy night,

Tangled, unscanned by mortal sight,

Extend the pathways of his secret thought.

From towering hopes mortals he hurleth prone

To utter doom; but for their fall

No force arrayeth he; for all

That gods devise is without effort wrought.

Seated aloft upon his holy throne,

He from afar works out his secret thought.

But let him mortal insolence behold;—

How with proud contumacy rife,

Wantons the stem in lusty life

My marriage craving;—phrenzy over-bold,

Spur ever-pricking, goads them on to fate,

By ruin taught their folly all too late.