Page:Four Plays of Aeschylus (Cookson).djvu/17

The thing that he hath wrought
With brow-nod of calm thought
Fallen, stands fast, and, grappled, is not thrown.
His counsels tread the maze
Of labyrinthine ways
Through quicks, through glooms with umbrage overgrown;
And in that covert dark and shy
Bold riders check the rein, foiled is the keenest cry.

From towered bastions
Of Hope he plucks Time's sons
And tosses them to ruin. If one brace
The mettle weariless
Of Gods for his duress,
Pride pays with penal pangs, though throned in the holy place.

So let him mark afresh
How froward is this flesh,
How the polled trunk for lust of me doth grow
With many a stubborn shoot;
How pricks to mad pursuit
The unremitting goad, a curse, a cheat, a woe.

So to music impassioned,
Sung high, sung low,
With tears I have fashioned
Untuneable woe.
Alack! 'tis like mourner's grieving.