Weep, men of Persia, while ye hear
And harken while ye weep!
Messenger.
Yea, we have fought it to a finish—I
Thought not to see the day of my return.
Chorus.
O life! too tedious pilgrimage
To the last span outdrawn!
On fading eyes waxed dim with weary age
Was this dark day to dawn?
Messenger.
Persians, the story that I have to tell
Is not a thing caught up from others' lips;
All ills prepared for our discomfiture
Myself was witness of; yea, had my share.
Chorus.
Vain, vain the arrow-blast,
The tumult of loud war!
Vain all the missiles Asia idly cast
On Hellas' fatal shore!
Messenger.
The bodies of men miserably slain
Lie heaped upon the shore of Salamis
And glut full many a creek and cove thereby.
Chorus.
The bodies of the men that died
The breakers buffet, the billows beat!
Tinct with the azure of the sea-salt tide,
Rolled with the wreckage of a shattered fleet!
