Page:Tragedies of Euripides (Way 1898) v3.djvu/230

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Give me the urn, whose gold

The Death-god's draught shall hold:—

Thee, whom earth's arms enfold,

Atreides' scion,

These things I give thee now;

Dear dead, accept them thou.

Bright tresses from my brow

Shall never lie on

Thy grave, nor tears. Our land—

Thine—mine—to me is banned.

Far off the altars stand

Men saw me die on.

Lo, I will peal on high

To echo thine, O queen,

My dirge, the Asian hymn, and that weird cry,

The wild barbaric keen,

The litany of death,

Song-tribute that we bring

To perished ones, where moaneth Hades' breath,

Where no glad pæans ring.

Woe for the kingly sway

From Atreus' house that falls!

Passed is their sceptre's glory, passed away—

Woe for my fathers' halls!

Where are the heaven-blest kings

Throned erstwhile in their might

O'er Argos? Trouble out of trouble springs

In ceaseless arrowy flight.