Page:Four Plays of Aeschylus (Cookson).djvu/56

My heart's blood eddies turbulent and black.
And this last touch of bitterest irony
Things in themselves untoward do not lack,
That all my father's lookings forth to sea
My feet enmesh;
'Tis I for fear have well nigh ceased to be.
I would about my neck a noose were bound;
I would that there the fated shaft were found
Winged with the wished-for liberty;
Ere flesh from amorous flesh
Recoiling feel the touch abhorred,
I would that I were dead and Hades had for lord.

Oh for a throne in stainless air
Where the moist and dripping cloud
Touches and is turned to snow.
Oh for a smooth and slippery rock
Where the wild goat fears to climb
And no intruding son of Time
Points a finger. Lone and bare
And wrapped in contemplation proud
It o'erhangs the gulf below;
There lean vultures flap and flock;
And, as if indeed it were
A living spirit, its blind wall
Shall bear record of my fall
Headlong—all my sorrows ending
And heartless love which is heart's rending.

Then, I grudge not dogs their prey;
Then, this body of mine shall feast
Birds that haunt the valley grounds.
There's no anguish in such wounds: