Page:The poetical works of Matthew Arnold, 1897.djvu/346

308 Murder let others call this, if they will;

I, self-defence and righteous execution.

MEROPE.

Alas, how fair a color can his tongue,

Who self-exculpates, lend to foulest deeds!

Thy trusting lord didst thou, his servant, slay;

Kinsman, thou slew'st thy kinsman; friend, thy friend—

This were enough; but let me tell thee, too,

Thou hadst no cause, as feign'd, in his misrule.

For ask at Argos, asked in Lacedæmon,

Whose people, when the Heracleidæ came,

Were hunted out, and to Achaia fled,

Whether is better, to abide alone,

A wolfish band, in a dispeopled realm,

Or conquerors with conquer'd to unite

Into one puissant folk, as he design'd?

These sturdy and unworn Messenian tribes,

Who shook the fierce Neleidæ on their throne,

Who to the invading Dorians stretch'd a hand,

And half bestow'd, half yielded up their soil—

He would not let his savage chiefs alight,

A cloud of vultures, on this vigorous race,

Ravin a little while in spoil and blood,

Then, gorged and helpless, be assail'd and slain.

He would have saved you from your furious selves.

Not in abhorr'd estrangement let you stand;

He would have mix'd you with your friendly foes,

Foes dazzled with your prowess, well inclined

To reverence your lineage, more, to obey;

So would have built you, in a few short years,

A just, therefore a safe, supremacy.

For well he knew, what you, his chiefs, did not—

How of all human rules the over-tense