Collected Works (Vol. III)

LIBER TERTIUS VEL LABORIS 187 RHADAMANTHUS. For righteous thought and deed Apportioning its meed ; For evil act and mind Rewarding in its kind ; So sit we: but our power Apportions not an hour To light the dying lamp, revive the faded flower. MINOS. But thou, be strong to sing! . ALACUS. Loose arrows from the string ! RHADAMANTHUS. Bid the wild word take wing ! MINOS. Hades hath evil fame To suppliants—bitter shame !— Inexorable. AE ACUS. Aim Yet the swift prayer, abide His word whate’er betide. What worse? RHADAMANTHUS, The Gods thy guide! Go and assail him ! MINOS. Stay, The Queen of Hell! ALACUS. That way Leads to the light of day. RHADAMANTHUS. A woman’s heart may yearn, To a man’s love may turn. MINOS. Should she, the ravished, spurn A man whose love is reft? ZEACUS. Meadows and flowers she left To Him—O bosom cleft With a wife’s loss !—a wife. RHADAMANTHUS., Too doubtful is the strife. MINOs. Yet go! perchance to life. ZEACUS. Go! and the Gods above Guard thee, O soul of love! RHADAMANTHUS, I doubt me much thereof, ORPHEUS, Ah me! I find ye but ill counsellors. For I will conquer. Have I spent these stores Of will and song for nought? Hell’s heart may rend, But mine endureth even to the end. Severe and righteous Lords, O fare ye well! Are not my feet forced forward on a road Leading to innermost abodes of Hell Exalted as above the green abode Of nymphs on broad Olympus, raises high Its head the kingly snow, gigantic load Of sombre whiteness cleaving through the sky For gods to dwell in? So I pass the hall And seek the gloomy thrones of majesty, Where I may pledge my last despairing call Unto the mightiest of the House of Dread, And loosen Death’s inexorable thrall