Page:The Dramas of Aeschylus (Swanwick).djvu/89

Rh

Bequeathing to her people deadly stour

Of shielded hosts, of spears, and ships' array,

And Ilion's ruin bearing as her dower,

She through the portal swiftly took her way,

Daring what none may dare;—with many a wail,

The palace seers peal'd forth the tale.

"Woe for the house, the house and chieftains, woe!

Woe for the couch, the trace of her once true!"

Wronged, yet without reproach, in speechless woe

There stands he, yearning still her form to view

Lost o'er the far sea-wave: his dreamy pain

Conjures her phantom in his home to reign.

He loathes the sculptor's plastic skill

Which living grace belies;

Not Aphroditè's self can still

The hunger of his eyes.

And dreamy fancies, coinage of the brain,

Come o'er the troubled heart with vain delight;

For vain the rapture, the illusion vain,

When forms beloved in visions of the night,

With changeful aspect, mock our grasp, and sweep

On noiseless wing adown the paths of sleep.

Such sorrows o'er the hearth brood evermore,

And woes o'ertowering these. The warrior train

Comrades in danger, steered from Hellas' shore,

Leaving in Hellas' homes heart-withering pain;