Whereof the seer spake, will I slay myself,
And make my country free. The word is said.
I go, to give my country no mean gift,
My life, from ruin so to save the land:
For, if each man would take his all of good,1015
Lavish it, lay it at his country's feet,
Then fewer evils should the nations prove,
And should through days to come be prosperous.
Chorus.
Thou camest, camest, O thou wingèd doom,
Fruit of Earth's travailing,1020
Begotten of the Worm of Nether-gloom,
On Kadmus' sons to spring
Death-fraught, and fraught with moanings for the dead,
Half maiden, half brute-beast,
Monster of roving pinions, talons red
From that raw-ravening feast,
Snatching from Dirkê's meads her young men, shrieking
O'er them thy dissonant knell,
Anguish of slaughter on our country wreaking,
Wreaking a curse-doom fell!1030
Ah, murderous God, these ills for us who fashioned!
Moanings of mothers filled
The shuddering homes, and maidens' moanings passioned:
And wail to wail aye thrilled,
And dirge to death-dirge, each to each replying
The stricken city through—
A nation's pang—as thunder pealed their crying,1040
As the winged maid with each new victim flying
From earth, was lost to view.
