Page:Tragedies of Euripides (Way 1898) v3.djvu/438

410 Like to a fawn that gambols mid delight

Of pastures green, when she hath left behind

The chasing horror, and hath sped her flight

Past watchers, o'er nets deadly-deftly twined,

Though shouting huntsmen cheer the racing hounds

Onward, the while with desperate stress and strain

And bursts of tempest-footed speed she bounds

Far over reaches of the river-plain,

Till sheltering arms of trees around her close,

The twilight of the tresses of the woods;—

O happy ransomed one, safe hid from foes

Where no man tracks the forest-solitudes!

What wisdom's crown, what guerdon, shines more glorious

That Gods can give the sons of men, than this—

O'er crests of foes to stretch the hand victorious?

Honour is precious evermore, I wis.

Slowly on-sweepeth, but unerringly,

The might of Heaven, with sternest lessoning

For men who in their own mad fantasy

Exalt their unbelief, and crown it king—

Mortals who dare belittle things divine!

Ah, but the Gods in subtle ambush wait:

On treads the foot of time; but their design

Is unrelinquished, and the ruthless fate

Quests as a sleuth-hound till it shall have tracked

The godless down in that relentless hunt.

We may not, in the heart's thought or the act,

Set us above the law of use and wont.