Poetry Explorer


Classic and Contemporary Poetry


RHESUS: NIGHT WATCH by EURIPIDES

First Line: SAY, WHOSE IS THE WATCH? WHO EXCHANGES
Last Line: OF DAWN IS SO NEAR.
Subject(s): NIGHT; BEDTIME;

SAY, whose is the watch? Who exchanges
With us? The first planets to rise
Are setting; the Pleiades seven
Move low on the margin of heaven,
And the Eagle is risen and ranges
The mid-vault of the skies.
No sleeping yet! Up from your couches
And watch on, the sluggards ye are!
The moon-maiden's lamp is yet burning.
Oh, the morning is near us, the morning!
Even now his fore-runner approaches,
Yon dim-shining star.

Nay, hearken! Again she is crying
Where death-laden Simois falls,
Of the face of dead Itys that stunned her,
Of grief grown to music and wonder:
Most changeful and old and undying
The nightingale calls.
And on Ida the shepherds are waking
Their flocks for the upland. I hear
The skirl of a pipe very distant.
And sleep it falls slow and insistent.
'Tis perilous sweet when the breaking
Of dawn is so near.



Home: PoetryExplorer.net