Blanched them nor death before his time drank dry
The blood whose bloom fulfilled them; for her cheeks
Lightened, and brighter than a bridal veil

Her hair enrobed her bosom and enrolled
From face to feet the body's whole soft length
As with a cloud sun-saturate; then she spake
With maiden tongue words manlike, but her eyes
Lit mildly like a maiden's: Countrymen,
With more goodwill and height of happier heart
I give me to you than my mother bare,

1210

1219

And go more gladly this great way to death
Than young men bound to battle. Then with face
Turned to the shadowiest part of all the shrine
And eyes fast set upon the further shade,
Take me, dear Gods; and as some form had shone
From the deep hollow shadow, some God's tongue
Answered, I bless you that your guardian grace
Gives me to guard this country, takes my blood,
Your child's by name, to heal it. Then the priest
Set to the flower-sweet snow of her soft throat
The sheer knife's edge that severed it, and loosed
From the fair bondage of so spotless flesh
So strong a spirit; and all that girt them round
Gazing, with souls that hung on that sad stroke,

Groaned, and kept silence after while a man

1230 Might count how far the fresh blood crept, and bathed How deep the dark robe and the bright shrine's base Red-rounded with a running ring that grew

More large and duskier as the wells that fed
Were drained of that pure effluence: but the queen
Groaned not nor spake nor wept, but as a dream
Floats out of eyes awakening so past forth

Ghost-like, a shadow of sorrow, from all sight

To the inner court and chamber where she sits 1239 Dumb, till word reach her of this whole day's end.

CHORUS.

More hapless born by far

Beneath some wintrier star,

One sits in stone among high Lydian snows,

The tomb of her own woes:

[Str.

Yet happiest was once of the daughters of Gods, and

divine by her sire and her lord,

Ere her tongue was a shaft for the hearts of her sons,

for the heart of her husband a sword.

For she, too great of mind,

Grown through her good things blind,

[Ant.

With godless lips and fire of her own breath

1250

But thou, no mother unmothered, nor kindled in spirit

Spake all her house to death;

with pride of thy seed,

Thou hast hallowed thy child for a blameless bloodoffering, and ransomed thy race by thy deed.

MESSENGER.

As flower is graffed on flower, so grief on grief Engraffed brings forth new blossoms of strange tears, Fresh buds and green fruits of an alien pain;

For now flies rumour on a dark wide wing,

1260

Murmuring of woes more than ye knew, most like
Hers whom ye hailed most wretched; for the twain
Last left of all this house that wore last night
A threefold crown of maidens, and to-day
Should let but one fall dead out of the wreath,
If mad with grief we know not and sore love
For this their sister, or with shame soul-stung
To outlive her dead or doubt lest their lives too
The Gods require to seal their country safe
And bring the oracular doom to perfect end,

Have slain themselves, and fallen at the altar-foot
Lie by their own hands done to death; and fear
Shakes all the city as winds a wintering tree,

1269

And as dead leaves are men's hearts blown about

And shrunken with ill thoughts, and flowerless hopes Parched up with presage, lest the piteous blood

Shed of these maidens guiltless fall and fix

On this land's forehead like a curse that cleaves

To the unclean soul's inexpiate hunted head
Whom his own crime tracks hotlier than

hound

To life's veiled end unsleeping; and this hour
Now blackens toward the battle that must close
All gates of hope and fear on all their hearts
Who tremble toward its issue, knowing not yet 1280
If blood may buy them surety, cleanse or soil
The helpless hands men raise and reach no stay.

CHORUS.

Ill thoughts breed fear, and fear ill words; but these The Gods turn from us that have kept their law.

Let us lift up the strength of our hearts in song, [Str. 1. And our souls to the height of the darkling day. If the wind in our eyes blow blood for spray,

With dark hand plying the rudder of doom,
And the surf-smoke under it flies like fume

As the blast shears off and the oar-blades churn
The foam of our lives that to death return,
Blown back as they break to the gulfing gloom.

What cloud upon heaven is arisen, what shadow, what sound,

[Str. 2.

From the world beyond earth, from the night

underground,

That scatters from wings unbeholden the weight of its

darkness around?

For the sense of my spirit is broken, and blinded its

eye,

[Ant. 2. 1300

As the soul of a sick man ready to die,

With fear of the hour that is on me, with dread if an

end be not nigh.