Page:Tragedies of Sophocles (Plumptre 1878).djvu/556

458 To Him do thou commit thy bitter pain,

Nor be thou over-vexèd, nor forget

Those whom thou hatest sorely evermore;

Time is a kind God yet;

For neither he who dwells on Crisa's shore,

Where feed the oxen, Agamemnon's son,

Unheeding, there lives on;

Nor yet the God who reigns

By Acheron's waters o'er his dark and drear domains.

Nay, but the larger half of life is gone,

And all hope fails, and I no more can bear;

No parents left, I waste my days alone,

And no true husband guardeth me from fear;

Like one of alien race,

I, in my sore disgrace,

My father's chambers tend,

In this unsightly and unseemly dress,

And still as slave attend,

And wait on tables in my sore distress,

Tables that empty stand,

No friends on either hand.

Sad was thy father's cry,

When home he came, and sad when, as he lay,

The stern, keen blow came nigh

Of brazen hatchet sharp to smite and slay;

Guile was it that devised the murderous crime,

And lust that slew him there,

Strangely strange form begetting of old time;

Whether a God it were,