No More Learning

Benign as erst, with sun-flushed aspect greet
The king returning after many days.
For as from night flash out the beams of day,
So out of darkness dawns a light, a king,
On you, on Argos--Agamemnon comes.
Then hail and greet him well! such meed befits
Him whose right hand hewed down the towers of Troy
With the great axe of Zeus who righteth wrong--
And smote the plain, smote down to nothingness
Each altar, every shrine; and far and wide
Dies from the whole land's face its offspring fair.

Such mighty yoke of fate he set on Troy--
Our lord and monarch, Atreus' elder son,
And comes at last with blissful honour home;
Highest of all who walk on earth to-day--
Not Paris nor the city's self that paid
Sin's price with him, can boast, _Whate'er befal,
The guerdon we have won outweighs it all. _
But at Fate's judgment-seat the robber stands
Condemned of rapine, and his prey is torn
Forth from his hands, and by his deed is reaped
A bloody harvest of his home and land
Gone down to death, and for his guilt and lust
His father's race pays double in the dust.

CHORUS

Hail, herald of the Greeks, new-come from war.

HERALD

All hail! not death itself can fright me now.

CHORUS

Was thine heart wrung with longing for thy land?

HERALD

So that this joy doth brim mine eyes with tears.

CHORUS

On you too then this sweet distress did fall--

HERALD

How say'st thou? make me master of thy word.

CHORUS

You longed for us who pined for you again.

HERALD

Craved the land us who craved it, love for love?
CHORUS

Yea till my brooding heart moaned out with pain.

HERALD

Whence thy despair, that mars the army's joy?

CHORUS

_Sole cure of wrong is silence,_ saith the saw.

HERALD

Thy kings afar, couldst thou fear other men?

CHORUS

Death had been sweet, as thou didst say but now.

HERALD

'Tis true; Fate smiles at last. Throughout our toil,
These many years, some chances issued fair,
And some, I wot, were chequered with a curse.
But who, on earth, hath won the bliss of heaven,
Thro' time's whole tenor an unbroken weal?
I could a tale unfold of toiling oars,
Ill rest, scant landings on a shore rock-strewn,
All pains, all sorrows, for our daily doom.
And worse and hatefuller our woes on land;
For where we couched, close by the foeman's wall,
The river-plain was ever dank with dews,
Dropped from the sky, exuded from the earth,
A curse that clung unto our sodden garb,
And hair as horrent as a wild beast's fell.
Why tell the woes of winter, when the birds
Lay stark and stiff, so stern was Ida's snow?
Or summer's scorch, what time the stirless wave
Sank to its sleep beneath the noon-day sun?
Why mourn old woes? their pain has passed away;
And passed away, from those who fell, all care,
For evermore, to rise and live again.

Why sum the count of death, and render thanks
For life by moaning over fate malign?
Farewell, a long farewell to all our woes!