Page:Tragedies of Seneca (1907) Miller.djvu/242

224 That worthily they might resound Unto my grief. But, O ye gods, Transform me to a weeping rock On Sipylus; or set me where, Between its grassy banks, the Po Glides on, where grieving woods respond To the mourning of the sisters sad Of Phaethon; or to the shores Of Sicily transport me. There, Another Siren, let me mourn The woeful fate of Thessaly. Or bear me to the Thracian woods, Where, underneath Ismarian shade, The Daulian bird bewails her son. Give me a form to fit my tears, And let rough Trachin echo back My cries of woe. The Cyprian maid Still soothes her grieving heart with tears; Still Ceyx's royal spouse bemoans Her vanished lord; and Niobe, Surviving life and grief, weeps on; Her human form has Philomel Escaped, and now with doleful notes The Attic maid bewails her dead. Oh, that my arms were feathered wings! Oh, then, how happy would I be, When, hidden in the forest depths, I might lament in plaintive strain, And live in fame as Iole, The maiden bird. I saw, alas, I saw my father's dreadful fate, When, smitten with that deadly club, He fell, in mangled fragments dashed Throughout the palace hall. If then His fate had granted burial, How often had I searched, O sire, For all thy parts! How could I look upon thy death, O Toxeus, with thy tender cheeks