Page:Tragedies of Euripides (Way 1894) v1.djvu/73

Rh

No help bringeth this

To thy love in that place.

Woe!

Bitter it is

The face of a wife well-belovèd for ever and ever to miss.

Thou hast stricken mine heart

Where the wound will not heal.

What is worse than to part

From the loving and leal?

Would God I had wedded her not, home-bliss with Alcestis to feel!

O, I envy the lot

Of the man without wife,

Without child: single-wrought

Is the strand of his life:

No soul-crushing burden of sorrow, no strength-overmastering strife.

But that children should sicken,

That gloom of despair

Over bride-beds should thicken,

What spirit can

When childless, unwedded, a man through life's calm journey might fare?