Terror! O moving with the quickness of wings, Royallest goddesses, To revelling sent, not flushed with wine, But in tears and crying, Swart avengers that flail the sweep Of air ascending, visiting blood With vengeance, visiting murder. You I beseech! you I beseech! To Agamemnon's son Concede oblivion of his rages Of errant frenzy: alas, poor Orestes! Undone, for fearful ends you are lost, From Phoebus' tripod hearing his word uttered Within the precinct that hides The fabled innermost navel-stone. O Zeus! What pity is there? what struggle Is bloodily moving now, Besetting you, wretched one, for whom A fiend avenging Sorrow heaps on sorrow, and brings Maddening indoors your mother's blood -- Great wealth not lingers with mortals: Let me lament! let me lament! Like mainsail on swift ship Him some deity hath shattered, And dashed in the violence of waves deadly, -- Of dreadful troubles as though of the sea. Where is there another house than this From heavenly seed derived, From Tantalus, for me to revere? | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...WALT WHITMAN by HARRISON SMITH MORRIS THE HOUSE OF LIFE: 53. WITHOUT HER by DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI THE ARGONAUTS (ARGONATUICA): THE MEETING by APOLLONIUS RHODIUS THE LIFE OF MAN by FRANCIS BACON STANZAS ON FINDING THE KEY OF AN OLD PIANO by E. JUSTINE BAYARD SONG OF OWL'S HEAD by NORMAN WILLIAMS BINGHAM |