Swift is thy spirit's path, and strange withal,
And hot thy love and hate, where'er they fall.

A deadly wrong they did me, yea within
Mine holy place: thou knowest?

                                        I know the sin
Of Ajax, when he cast Cassandra down . . .

And no man rose and smote him; not a frown
Nor word from all the Greeks!

                                                And 'twas thine hand
That gave them Troy!

                                    Therefore with thee I stand
To smite them.

                            All thou cravest, even now
Is ready in mine heart. What seekest thou?

An homecoming that striveth ever more
And cometh to no home.

                                        Here on the shore
Wouldst hold them or amid mine own salt foam?

When the last ship hath bared her sail for home!
    Zeus shall send rain, long rain and flaw of driven
Hail, and a whirling darkness blown from heaven;To me his levin-light he promiseth
O'er ships and men, for scourging and hot death:
Do thou make wild the roads of the sea, and steep
With war of waves and yawning of the deep,
Till dead men choke Euboea's curling bay.
So Greece shall dread even in an after day
My house, nor scorn the Watchers of strange lands!

I give thy boon unbartered. These mine hands
Shall stir the waste Aegean; reefs that cross
The Delian pathways, jag-torn Myconos,
Scyros and Lemnos, yea, and storm-driven
Caphêreus with the bones of drownèd men
Shall glut him.—Go thy ways, and bid the Sire
Yield to thine hand the arrows of his fire.
Then wait thine hour, when the last ship shall wind
Her cable coil for home!                     [Exit Pallas.
                                    How are ye blind,
Ye treaders down of cities, ye that cast
Temples to desolation, and lay waste
Tombs, the untrodden sanctuaries where lie
The ancient dead; yourselves so soon to die!
                                                        [Exit Poseidon.

        Up from the earth, O weary head!
            This is not Troy, about, above—
            Not Troy, nor we the lords thereof.
        Thou breaking neck, be strengthenèd!