Page:Prometheus Bound, and other poems.djvu/50

Of my soul's power to look beyond the veil
Of visible things. The rest, to you and her,
I will declare in common audience, nymphs,
Returning thither where my speech brake off.
There is a town Canobus, built upon
The earth's far margin, at the mouth of Nile,
And on the mound washed up by it!—Io, there
Shall Zeus give back to thee thy perfect mind,
And only by the touch and by the stroke
Of his undreadful hand! and thou shalt bear
A dusky son to Zeus, who shall be called
Thence, Epaphus, the Touched! That son shall pluck the fruit
From all that land wide-watered by the flow
Of flooding Nile,—and, counting from his life
The fifth full generation,—which involves
Full fifty maidens, a fair woman-race,
Shall back to Argos turn reluctantly,
To fly the proffered nuptials of their kin,
Their father's brother's. But they, passion-struck,
Like falcons bearing hard on flying doves,
Shall drive on, hunting on that quarry of love
They should not hunt—till envious Heaven shall lay
A curse betwixt that beauty and their desire,
And Greece receive them, to be overcome
In murtherous woman-war, by fierce red hands,
Round which the night keeps watch. For every wife
Shall slay her husband, dyeing deep in blood
The sword of double edges—(now do I wish
As fair a marriage-joy to all my foes!)
One bride alone shall fail to smite to death
The head upon her pillow, touched with love,