Argos, belike, or Phthia shall it be,
        Or some lone island of the tossing sea,
                        Far, far from Troy?

            And I the agèd, where go I,
                A winter-frozen bee, a slave
            Death-shapen, as the stones that lie
                Hewn on a dead man's grave:
            The children of mine enemy
                To foster, or keep watch before
                The threshold of a master's door,
                    I that was Queen in Troy!

        And thou, what tears can tell thy doom?
The Other.            The shuttle still shall flit and change
        Beneath my fingers, but the loom,
                        Sister, be strange.
Another (wildly).
        Look, my dead child! My child, my love,
        The last look. . . .
Another.                    Oh, there cometh worse.
        A Greek's bed in the dark. . . .
Another.                                    God curse
        That night and all the powers thereof!Another.        Or pitchers to and fro to bear
            To some Pirênê on the hill,
            Where the proud water craveth still
        Its broken-hearted minister.
Another.        God guide me yet to Theseus' land,
            The gentle land, the famed afar . . .
Another.        But not the hungry foam—Ah, never!—
        Of fierce Eurotas, Helen's river,
        To bow to Menelaus' hand,
            That wasted Troy with war!

        They told us of a land high-born,
            Where glimmers round Olympus' roots
        A lordly river, red with corn
                      And burdened fruits.
Another.        Aye, that were next in my desire
            To Athens, where good spirits dwell . . .
Another.        Or Aetna's breast, the deeps of fire
            That front the Tyrian's Citadel:
        First mother, she, of Sicily
            And mighty mountains: fame hath told
            Their crowns of goodness manifold. . . .
Another.        And, close beyond the narrowing sea,
        A sister land, where float enchanted
            Ionian summits, wave on wave,        And Crathis of the burning tresses
        Makes red the happy vale, and blesses
        With gold of fountains spirit-haunted
                Homes of true men and brave!

        But lo, who cometh: and his lips
            Grave with the weight of dooms unknown:
        A Herald from the Grecian ships.