Page:Tragedies of Sophocles (Plumptre 1878).djvu/107

Rh Or as the months roll on, thy hand will work;

Tell me, Ο deathless Voice, thou child of golden hope!

Thee first, Zeus-born Athena, thee I call,

Divine and deathless One,

And next thy sister, Goddess of our land,

Our Artemis, who sits,

Queen of our market, on encircled throne;

And Phœbos, the far-darter! Ο ye Three,

Shine on us, and deliver us from ill!

If e'er before, when storms of woe oppressed,

Ye stayed the fiery tide, Ο come and help us now!

Ah me, ah me, for sorrows numberless

Press on my soul;

And all the host is smitten, and our thoughts

Lack weapons to resist.

For increase fails of fruits of goodly earth,

And women sink in childbirth's wailing pangs,

And one by one, as flit

The swift-winged birds through air,

So, flitting to the shore of Him who dwells

Down in the darkling West,

Fleeter than mightiest fire,

Thou see'st them passing on.

Yea, numberless are they who perish thus;

And on the earth,

Still breeding plague, unpitied infants lie,