Page:Tragedies of Seneca (1907) Miller.djvu/156

138 In hell let in the light of day, And to the upper world reveal An easy path. Once, by his songs And suppliant prayers, did Orpheus bend The stubborn lords of hell, when he His lost Eurydice would seek. That art which drew the forest trees, Which held the birds and rocks enthralled, Which stopped the river's headlong race, And tamed the hearts of savage beasts, Soothed with its strains ne'er heard before Those darksome realms, and clear and fine Resounded through that silent land. Eurydice the Thracian dames Bewailed; Eurydice, the gods, Who ne'er had wept before; and they Who with forbidding, awful brows, In judgment sit and hear the crimes Long since committed, unconfessed, They sat and wept Eurydice, Until the lord of death exclaimed: "We grant thy prayer. Away to earth; But on this sole condition go: Do thou behind thy husband fare; And look thou not upon thy wife, Until the light of day thou see, And Spartan Taenarus appear." Love hates delay, nor suffers it: He hasted to behold his wife— And she again was lost to him.

So, then, the fortress that could yield to song, Be sure that fortress shall to strength belong.

Hercules: O kindly lord of light, heaven's ornament, Who circlest all the spaces of the sky With thy flame-bearing car, and thy bright head Dost lift to glad a new-awakened earth: