And the whizzing wheel stands still. She steals to the window, and looks at the sand, And over the sand at the sea; From a sorrow-clouded eye, A long, long sigh; For the cold strange eyes of a little Mermaiden And the gleam of her golden hair. 115 120 Over banks of bright seaweed We will gaze, from the sand-hills, At the white, sleeping town; At the church on the hill-side- There dwells a loved one, But cruel is she! She left lonely for ever The kings of the sea.” 135 140 BROWNING. A TRANSCRIPT FROM EURIPIDES. THERE slept a silent palace in the sun, "What now may mean the silence at the door? 5 ΙΟ 15 O' the woe, be present! Yet, had woe o'erwhelmed The housemates, they were hardly silent thus: It cannot be, the dead is forth and gone. Whence comes thy gleam of hope? I dare not hope: 20 How could Admetos have dismissed a wife So worthy, unescorted to the grave? Before the gates I see no hallowed vase Of fountain water, such as suits death's door; 25 Though surely these drop when we grieve the dead, (253) How speak the word? - this day is even the day So wailed they, while a sad procession wound Her last and let the living look their last - 'Sun, and thou light of day, and heavenly dance 66 Sun that sees thee and me, a suffering pair, 30 35 40 45 Who did the Gods no wrong whence thou should'st die!") She missed no happiness that lay beneath: "O thou wide earth, from these my palace roofs, To distant nuptial chambers once my own 50 In that Iolkos of my ancestry!" There the flight failed her. "Raise thee, wretched one! Give us not up! Pray pity from the Gods!" The two-oared boat! The ferryer of the dead, even now calls 'Why delayest thou? Calls me A bitter voyage this to undergo, 55 Even i' the telling! Adverse Powers above, 65 70 Then a shiver ran: 66 He has me · seest not? - hales me, - who is it? I have to traverse, all unhappy one!" 66 Way-piteous to my friends, but, most of all, Me and thy children: ours assuredly A common partnership in grief like this!" Whereat they closed about her; but "Let be! Leave, let me lie now! Strength forsakes my feet. Comes the night creeping. Children - children, now Farewell, O children, long enjoy the light!" "Ah me, the melancholy word I hear, Or cease to be- so we adore thy love!" Which brought out truth to judgment. At this word And protestation, all the truth in her Claimed to assert itself: she waved away The blue-eyed, black-wing'd phantom, held in check 90 The advancing pageantry of Hades there, And, with no change in her own countenance, She fixed her eyes on the protesting man, And let her lips unlock their sentence, 66 Admetos, so! - how things go with me thou seest, I wish to tell thee, ere I die, what things I wish should follow. Ito honor thee, 95 |