And if I hear thy swift foam-snorting steeds
     Drawing thy dusky chariot, as in
     The pauses of the wind I seem to hear,
     Deaf thou art not to my entreating prayer! 
     Haste then to give us help, for closely now
     Crete whispers in my ears, and all my blood
     Runs keen and warm for home, and I have yearning,
     Such yearning as I never felt before,
     To see again my wife, my little son,
     My Queen, my pretty nursling of five years,
     The darling of my hopes, our dearest pledge
     Of marriage, and our brightest prize of love,
     Whose parting cry rings clearest in my heart. 
     O lay this horror, much-offended God! 
     And making all as fair and firm as when
     We trusted to thy mighty depths of old, —
     I vow to sacrifice the first whom Zeus
     Shall prompt to hail us from the white seashore
     And welcome our return to royal Crete,
     An offering, Poseidon, unto thee!

     Amid the din of elemental strife,
     No voice may pierce but Deity supreme: 
     And Deity supreme alone can hear,
     Above the hurricane’s discordant shrieks,
     The cry of agonized humanity.

     Not unappeased was He who smites the waves,
     When to his stormy ears the warrior’s vow
     Entered, and from his foamy pinnacle
     Tumultuous he beheld the prostrate form,
     And knew the mighty heart.  Awhile he gazed,
     As doubtful of his purpose, and the storm,
     Conscious of that divine debate, withheld
     Its fierce emotion, in the luminous gloom
     Of those so dark irradiating eyes! 
     Beneath whose wavering lustre shone revealed
     The tumult of the purpling deeps, and all
     The throbbing of the tempest, as it paused,
     Slowly subsiding, seeming to await
     The sudden signal, as a faithful hound
     Pants with the forepaws stretched before its nose,
     Athwart the greensward, after an eager chase;
     Its hot tongue thrust to cool, its foamy jaws
     Open to let the swift breath come and go,
     Its quick interrogating eyes fixed keen
     Upon the huntsman’s countenance, and ever
     Lashing its sharp impatient tail with haste: 
     Prompt at the slightest sign to scour away,
     And hang itself afresh by the bleeding fangs,
     Upon the neck of some death-singled stag,
     Whose royal antlers, eyes, and stumbling knees
     Will supplicate the Gods in mute despair. 
     This time not mute, nor yet in vain this time! 
     For still the burden of the earnest voice
     And all the vivid glories it revoked
     Sank in the God, with that absorbed suspense
     Felt only by the Olympians, whose minds
     Unbounded like our mortal brain, perceive
     All things complete, the end, the aim of all;
     To whom the crown and consequence of deeds
     Are ever present with the deed itself.