Page:The Dramas of Aeschylus (Swanwick).djvu/503

Rh With native corpses strow

This land's ensanguined plain!

Still may youth's gracious flower

Unsickled blow;

Nor Aphrodite's spouse, man-slaying power,

Relentless Ares, mow its blossom down!

May offerings blaze in every sacred fane,

By foreign elders throng'd, an honoured train,

That well may fare the State!

Zeus let them hail, the Great,—

The stranger's god, who fate

By hoary law doth rein.

Fresh produce may the fields

For ever bear,

And may dread Artemis, her bow who wields,

View women's travail-pangs and kindly spare.

And let no man-destroying mischief lay

This town in ruins, arming for the fray,

Ares, the source of tears, of ruthless mood,

Danceless and lyreless. May the brood

Of fell disease far from these burghers wing