Page:The poetical works of Matthew Arnold, 1897.djvu/240

202 His beloved Argive seer would Zeus retain

From his appointed end

In this our Thebes; but when

His flying steeds came near

To cross the steep Ismenian glen,

The broad earth opened, and whelmed them and him,

And through the void air sang

At large his enemy's spear.

And fain would Zeus have saved his tired son,

Beholding him where the Two Pillars stand

O'er the sun-reddened western straits,14

Or at his work in that dim lower world.

Fain would he have recalled

The fraudulent oath which bound

To a much feebler wight the heroic man.

But he preferred fate to his strong desire.

Nor did there need less than the burning pile

Under the towering Trachis crags,

And the Spercheios vale, shaken with groans,

And the roused Maliac gulf,

And scared Œtaean snows,

To achieve his son's deliverance, O my child!