Xerxes.
My fate is upon me;
My star hath declined;
A grief hath undone me;
A doom none divined
Hath broken the sceptre of Persia as a reed that is snapped in the wind.
Age, thine eyes chide me;
They bow down my head;
My strength is denied me;
My limbs are as lead.
Would God I lay fallen in battle, covered up out of sight with the dead!
Chorus.
Lord of our splendour,
Our goodly array;
Despoiler and spender
And caster-away
Of thy host; God hath cut off thy lieges and darkened the light of thy day.
And Persia, their mother,
Mourns them that fell:
She, she, and none other,
Acclaimeth thee well,
King Xerxes, that gorged with her children the maw and the belly of Hell!
The pride and the power of her
Thou hast brought low:
Count the fallen flower of her,
Lords of the bow,
