Page:Tragedies of Euripides (Way 1898) v3.djvu/438

---

Like to a fawn that gambols mid delight
Of pastures green, when she hath left behind
The chasing horror, and hath sped her flight
Past watchers, o'er nets deadly-deftly twined,

Though shouting huntsmen cheer the racing hounds 870
Onward, the while with desperate stress and strain
And bursts of tempest-footed speed she bounds
Far over reaches of the river-plain,

Till sheltering arms of trees around her close,
The twilight of the tresses of the woods;—
O happy ransomed one, safe hid from foes
Where no man tracks the forest-solitudes!

What wisdom's crown, what guerdon, shines more glorious
That Gods can give the sons of men, than this—
O'er crests of foes to stretch the hand victorious? 880
Honour is precious evermore, I wis.
(Ant.)
Slowly on-sweepeth, but unerringly,
The might of Heaven, with sternest lessoning
For men who in their own mad fantasy
Exalt their unbelief, and crown it king—

Mortals who dare belittle things divine!
Ah, but the Gods in subtle ambush wait:
On treads the foot of time; but their design
Is unrelinquished, and the ruthless fate

Quests as a sleuth-hound till it shall have tracked 890
The godless down in that relentless hunt.
We may not, in the heart's thought or the act,
Set us above the law of use and wont.