Yet I know that manifold
Days, like sand, have waxen old

Since the day those shoreward-thrown
  Cables flapped and line on line
Standing forth for Ilion
  The long galleys took the brine

         &nb
sp;                                            [Antistrophe 1.
  And in harbour—­mine own eye
  Hath beheld—­again they lie;
Yet that lyreless music hidden
  Whispers still words of ill,
’Tis the Soul of me unbidden,
Like some Fury sorrow-ridden,
  Weeping over things that die. 
  Neither waketh in my sense
  Ever Hope’s dear confidence;
  For this flesh that groans within,
  And these bones that know of Sin,
  This tossed heart upon the spate
  Of a whirpool that is Fate,
  Surely these lie not.  Yet deep
    Beneath hope my prayer doth run,
  All will die like dreams, and creep
    To the unthought of and undone.

         &nb
sp;                                            [Strophe 2.
—­Surely of great Weal at the end of all
  Comes not Content; so near doth Fever crawl,
  Close neighbour, pressing hard the narrow wall.

—­Woe to him who fears not fate! 
’Tis the ship that forward straight
Sweepeth, strikes the reef below;
He who fears and lightens weight,
Casting forth, in measured throw,
From the wealth his hand hath got ... 
His whole ship shall founder not,
With abundance overfraught,
Nor deep seas above him flow. 
—­Lo, when famine stalketh near,
One good gift of Zeus again
From the furrows of one year
Endeth quick the starving pain;

         &nb
sp;                                            [Antistrophe 2.
—­But once the blood of death is fallen, black
  And oozing at a slain man’s feet, alack! 
  By spell or singing who shall charm it back?

—­One there was of old who showed
Man the path from death to day;
But Zeus, lifting up his rod,
Spared not, when he charged him stay.

—­Save that every doom of God
Hath by other dooms its way
Crossed, that none may rule alone,
In one speech-outstripping groan
Forth had all this passion flown,
Which now murmuring hides away,
Full of pain, and hoping not
Ever one clear thread to unknot
From the tangle of my soul,
From a heart of burning coal.

[Suddenly CLYTEMNESTRA appears standing in the Doorway.

CLYTEMNESTRA.

Thou likewise, come within!  I speak thy name,
Cassandra;

[CASSANDRA trembles, but continues to stare in front of her, as though not hearing CLYTEMNESTRA.