God
bringeth
Justice in his own slow tide.
Euripides - Electra
The wind as a changed thing
Whispereth overhead
Of one that of old lay dead
In the water lapping long:
My King, O my King!
A cry in the rafters then
Rang, and the marble dome:
"Mercy of God, not thou,
"Woman! To slay me now,
"After the harvests ten
"Now, at the last, come home! "
O Fate shall turn as the tide,
Turn, with a doom of tears
For the flying heart too fond;
A doom for the broken bond.
She hailed him there in his pride,
Home from the perilous years,
In the heart of his walled lands,
In the Giants' cloud-capt ring;
Herself, none other, laid
The hone to the axe's blade;
She lifted it in her hands,
The woman, and slew her king.
Woe upon spouse and spouse,
Whatso of evil sway
Held her in that distress!
Even as a lioness
Breaketh the woodland boughs
Starving, she wrought her way.
VOICE OF CLYTEMNESTRA.
O Children, Children; in the name of God,
Slay not your mother!
A WOMAN.
Did ye hear a cry
Under the rafters?
ANOTHER.
I weep too, yea, I;
Down on the mother's heart the child hath trod!
[_A death-cry from within_.
ANOTHER.
God bringeth Justice in his own slow tide.
Aye, cruel is thy doom; but thy deeds done
Evil, thou piteous woman, and on one
Whose sleep was by thy side!
[_The door bursts open, and_ ORESTES _and_ ELECTRA _come forth in
disorder. Attendants bring out the bodies of_ CLYTEMNESTRA _and_
AEGISTHUS.
LEADER.
Lo, yonder, in their mother's new-spilt gore
Red-garmented and ghastly, from the door
They reel. . . . O horrible! Was it agony
Like this, she boded in her last wild cry?
There lives no seed of man calamitous,
Nor hath lived, like this seed of Tantalus.
ORESTES.
O Dark of the Earth, O God,
Thou to whom all is plain;
Look on my sin, my blood,
This horror of dead things twain;
Gathered as one they lie
Slain; and the slayer was I,
I, to pay for my pain!
ELECTRA.
Let tear rain upon tear,
Brother: but mine is the blame.
