with eyes that
are eager for right.
Zeus, thou that art lord of the world,
whose kingdom
is strong over all,
Have mercy on us! At thine altar
for refuge
and safety we
call.
For the race of Aegyptus is fierce,
with greed and
with malice afire;
They cry as the questing hounds,
they sweep with
the speed of desire.
But thine is the balance of fate,
thou rulest the
wavering scale,
And without thee no mortal emprise
shall have strength
to achieve or prevail.
Alack, alack! the ravisher—
He leaps from boat to beach, he draweth
near!
Away, thou plunderer accurst!
Death seize thee
first,
Or e’er thou touch me—off!
God, hear our cry,
Our maiden agony!
Ah, ah, the touch, the prelude of my shame.
Alas, my maiden
fame!
O sister, sister, to the altar
cling,
For he that seizeth
me,
Grim is his wrath and stern, by land as
on the sea.
Guard us, O king!
[Enter
the HERALD OF AEGYPTUS]
HERALD OF AEGYPTUS
Hence to my barge—step swiftly,
tarry not.
Alack, he rends—he rends my
hair! O wound on
wound!
Help! my lopped head will fall, my blood
gush o’er
the ground!
HERALD OF AEGYPTUS
Aboard, ye cursed—with a new
curse, go!
Would God that on the wand’ring
brine
Thou and this braggart tongue
of thine
Had sunk beneath
the main—
Thy mast and planks, made
fast in vain!
Thee would I drive aboard
once more,
A slayer and a dastard, from the shore!
HERALD OF AEGYPTUS
Be still, thou vain demented
soul;
My force thy craving shall
control.
Away, aboard! What, clingest to
the shrine?
Away! this city’s gods I hold not
for divine.
Aid me, ye gods,
that never, never
I
may again behold
The mighty, the
life-giving river,
Nilus, the quickener of field
and fold!
Alack, O sire, unto the shrine
I cling—
Shrine of this land from which mine ancient
line did spring!
HERALD OF AEGYPTUS
Shrines, shrines, forsooth!—the
ship, the ship be shrine!
Aboard, perforce and will-ye nill-ye,
go!
Or e’er
from hands of mine
Ye suffer torments worse and blow on blow.
Alack, God grant
those hands may strive in vain
With
the salt-streaming wave,
When ’gainst
the wide-blown blasts thy bark shall strain
To round Sarpedon’s cape, the sandbank’s
treach’rous grave.
