Page:Tragedies of Sophocles (Plumptre 1878).djvu/535

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New evils from this blind man's misery,

This stranger to our home;

Unless it be that Destiny has brought

What shall at last prevail;

For lo! I dare not say that any thought

Of the high Gods shall fail.

Time ever sees these things, beholds them all,

Bringing full round his wheel,

Upraising in a day the things that fall:—

Ο Zeus! that thunder-peal!

Lo! the loud thunder sweeps,

Heaven-sent and dread;

And panic terror through each white hair creeps

That crowns my aged head;

I shudder in my soul, for yet again

The flashing lightning gleams.

What shall I say? What issue will it gain?

Fear fills my waking dreams;

For not in vain do all these portents rise,

Nor void of end foreknown;

O flashing fire that blazest through the skies!

Ο Zeus, the Almighty One!

Ah me! ah me! again

Resounds the crash that pierces in its might:

Be pitiful, be pitiful, Ο God!

If aught thou bringest black and dark as night,

To this our mother earth:

Yea, may I still find favour in thy sight