186 —
ORPHEUS
And deep unrest is seated in your limbs.
Ye pity me. Ye pity. Mute and weak
With the long trouble of persistent hymns
I bow myself and listen while ye speak.
MINOS.
Brethren, what need of wonder
That Hell is burst asunder
Shaken from base to brow, as if with Zeus’
own thunder?
What wonder if our peace
Broke, and our mysteries
Quaked at the prescience of these solemnities ?
AE ACUS.
Child of the earth and heaven,
Our spirits thou hast riven
With words we must admit, with power of
song—whence given?
Neither of God nor man,
Thy song’s amazing span
Hath caused strange joy among the woes
Tartarean.
RHADAMANTHUS.
Never in the centuries
Till godlike Heracles
Burst the wild bonds, hath mortal found the
fatal knees;
Nor hath the bitter cry
Of worlds in agony
Answered the groans of those who weep,
and cannot die.
MINOS.
Iron of heart and strong,
We also suffer wrong.
We know these words are just.
not. Though thy song
Were the sole word of Zeus,
Should that avail to loose
The bands of Being firm, invulnerable dews
Tincturing its bitter brass,
Shielding its vital mass
From every word that cries, ‘‘ Thus, and thy
day shall pass.”
We avail
ALACUS.
Typhon ! Typhon ! Typhon !
Heard ye that awful moan
Leap through the blackness from the miser-
able throne?
Vain as each pallid ghost,
Where is thy fatal boast,
Destroyer named of old on Khem’s! disas-
trous coast?
Old power of-evil curled
Below the phantom world,
Canst thou destroy, whose might to misery
is hurled ?
RHADAMANTHUS.
What god beyond these twain
Abides or may remain
Seated, too strong to quell, exalted over
pain ?
-Aloof from time and chance,
Fate, will and circumstance,
Canst Thou not wither Life with one in-
dignant glance?
Thy name we know not; Thine
Is the unbuilded shrine.
We doubt us if Thou be among the powers
divine !
MINOS.
Bound by strict line and law,
Fearful with might and awe,
We hold the powerless power
For many an agéd hour.
We move not from our place.
We ask nor give not grace,
Nor change our lordly looks before a sup-
pliant’s face.
AL ACUS.
Stern in all justice, we
Assent aloud to thee,
We affirm thy cause as right :
We put forth all the might
Of aid : and all is done.
Our utmost power is none
To lift one soul to live and look upon the
sun.
1 Egypt.