Odes from the Greek DramatistsAlfred William Pollard |
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Page 85 - There wants not one of them all Wrath, envy, discord, strife, The sword that seeketh life. And sealing the sum of trouble Doth tottering Age draw nigh, Whom friends and kinsfolk fly, Age, upon whom redouble All sorrows under the sky. This man, as me, even so, Have the evil days overtaken; And like as a cape sea-shaken With tempest at earth's last verges And shock of all winds that blow, His head the seas of woe, The thunders of awful surges Ruining overflow; Blown from the fall of even, Blown from...
Page 67 - When Reason's day Sets rayless — joyless — quenched in cold decay, Better to die, and sleep The never-waking sleep, than linger on, And dare to live, when the soul's life is gone...
Page 129 - ... the wide meadow, Rejoices she in the untrod solitude. Couches at length beneath the silent shadow Of the old hospitable wood. What is wisest ? what is fairest, Of god's boons to man the rarest ? With the conscious conquering hand Above the foeman's head to stand. What is fairest still is dearest. Slow come, but come at length, In their majestic strength Faithful and true, the avenging deities : And chastening human folly, And the mad pride unholy, Of those who to the gods bow not their knees....
Page 157 - Up to the thunderous ./Ether ascending : Whilst all that breathe, on earth beneath, The beasts of the wood, the plain and the flood, In panic amazement are crouching and bending ; With the awful qualm, of a sudden calm, Ocean and air in silence blending. The ridge of Olympus is sounding on high, Appalling with wonder the lords of the sky, And the Muses and Graces Enthroned in their places, Join in the solemn symphony.
Page 171 - I am always repeating to myself your lines from Sophocles: Man's happiest lot is not to be: And when we tread life's thorny steep, Most blest are they, who earliest free Descend to death's eternal sleep.
Page 191 - MORSHEAD, EDA — The House of Atreus. Being the Agamemnon, Libation-Bearers, and Furies of /Eschylus. Translated into English Verse. Crown Svo, Js. The Suppliant Maidens of ^Eschylus. Crown Svo, $s. 6d. NADEN, Constance W.— Songs and Sonnets of Spring Time.
Page 83 - Doth one with other befriend, Whom bride nor bridesmen attend, Song, nor sound of the tabor, Death, that maketh an end. Thy portion esteem I highest, Who wast not ever begot; Thine next, being born who diest And straightway again art not. With follies light as the feather Doth Youth to man befall; Then evils gather together, There wants not one of them all — Wrath, envy, discord, strife, The sword that seeketh life. And sealing the sum of trouble Doth tottering Age draw nigh, Whom friends and kinsfolk...
Page 65 - Salamis, the billow's roar Wanders around thee yet; And sailors gaze upon thy shore Firm in the Ocean set. Thy son is in a foreign clime Where Ida feeds her countless flocks, Far from thy dear remembered rocks, Worn by the waste of time, — Comfortless, nameless, hopeless,— save In the dark prospect of the yawning grave. And Ajax, in his deep distress Allied to our disgrace. Hath cherished in his loneliness The bosom friend's embrace.
Page xii - So graunt the Gods, that for our finall rest, Dame Venus pleasant lookes may please thee best, Wherby when thou shalt all amazed stand, The sword may fall out of thy trembling hand. And thou maist prove some other way full well The bloudie prowesse of thy mightie speare, Wherwith thou raisest from the depth of hell, The wrathfull sprites of all the furies there, Who when the[y] w[a]ke, doe wander every where, And never rest to range about the coastes, Tenriche that pit with spoile of damned ghostes.
Page 153 - ... reason: For first we proclaim and make known to them Spring and the Winter and Autumn in season; Bid sow, when the crane starts clanging for Afric in shrill-voiced emigrant number And calls to the pilot to hang up his rudder again for the season and slumber; And then weave a cloak for Orestes the thief, lest he strip men of theirs if it freezes.