Page:Tragedies of Euripides (Way 1898) v3.djvu/289

Rh The shaft that he loveth well,—and she fled from the rock by the swell

Of the sea encompassed, bringing

From the place where her travail befell

Her babe to the height whence rolled the gushing rills untold,

Where the Wine-god's revels stormy-souled

O'er the crests of Parnassus fare;

Where, gleaming with coils iridescent, half-hiding

The glint of his mail 'neath the dense-shadowed bay,

Was the earth-spawned monster, the dragon, gliding

Round the chasm wherein earth's oracle lay.

But thou, who wast yet but a babe, yet leaping

Babe-like in thy mother's loving embrace,

Thou, Phœbus, didst slay him, didst take for thine

The oracle's lordship, the right divine,

And still on the tripod of gold art keeping

Thy session, dispensing to us, to the race

Of men, revelation of heaven's design,

From thy throne of truth, from the secret shrine,

By the streams through Castaly's cleft up-sweeping,

Where the Heart of the World is thy dwelling-place.

But the Child of Earth did his coming make

Of her birthright dispossessed,

For the oracle-sceptre of Themis he brake:

Wherefore the Earth from her breast,

To make of his pride a derision, sent forth dream-vision on vision,

Whereby to the sons of men the things that had been ere then,