In the baths thou hast cheered him-the close can I tell?

Yes, soon 'twill be over ;-there hands go pell-mell,
And thrusts follow rapidly.

CHORUS.

Not yet I ken; but after thy dark says
Still wander in a wild and wordy maze.

CASSANDRA.

STROPHE V.

Aha! woe is me! woe is me!

What is this? the red scene that before me I see?
A drag-net, the drag-net of Hell;

Nay-a man-trap beside him is couching;

To smite him a murtheress is crouching;
Let the bevy unglutted go yell

O'er the victim avenged by the stony shower191 well.

CHORUS.

STROPHE VI.

What Fiend is this that thou art hounding on
To scream her joy-note o'er a house undone ?
It glads me not the word thou utterest;
But backward to my heart

Saffron-tinged the drop hath run,'

That death-struck, faint and falling,

192

Sets with the last rays of life's setting sun :193
Swift is the work of woe: 'tis ended when begun.

Look! look! in the bath-wrapper's dank dropping flow

How she tangles each poor helpless limb:
With a black horn, her weapon of slaughter,
She smites him, he falls where the water
Is playing around the bath-rim:

I speak of a caldron death-drugged to the brim.

CHORUS.

ANTISTROPHE VI.

Spells of dark speech to read, no master-skill
Boast I; but these I liken unto ill.

From words of seers can tale of good report 19
Be sped to make man blest?

Yea, through evils sad and drear,

The many-worded art-song

Its burden bears of weird and wizzard fear :

Whence men may wisdom learn, if they those words will

hear.

CASSANDRA.

STROPHE VII.

Woe! woe! poor me !-my ill-starred chance, woe! woe!
For mingling thine, thou dost repeat my blow.
Where hast thou led me wretch forlorn, Oh! why-
Why drag me hither but with thee to die ?*

CHORUS.

STROPHE VIII.

Of frenzied soul art thou and God-possessed,
And o'er thyself a lawless lay196

Dost gurgle, like some dusky nightingale,197
Whose utterance nought can satisfy nor stay.

* O King Agamemnon, why hast thou brought me hither? To die with thee? Yes, and die twice over-once at thy death, and once at my own.

Alas! alas! with mind forlorn,

'Tis Itys! Itys! all the day,

From night to morn, from morn till eve:
A mourner, who doth sadly mourn

A life set thick with woes, whose burden is to grieve.

CASSANDRA.

ANTISTROPHE VII.

Woe! woe! the lot of the shrill nightingale !—
The winged form and life without a wail—198
A calm sweet life the Gods round her have thrown;
On me-a steel two-edged that cleaves the bone.

CHORUS.

ANTISTROPHE VIII.

Whence hast thou, hurrying o'er thee and God-borne, These vain and wild calamities?

Why forgest, on the anvil of clear song,

With ill-tongued clang and shrill ear-piercing cries,
Things horrible and full of dread,

That like an uplift clarion rise?

Whence hast thou reached the echoing walls
That bound the paths where prophets tread,
And ring with words of woe in never-dying falls?

CASSANDRA.

STROPHE IX.

Ho! Bridals! the Bridals of Paris!
Marriage-feast the death-doom of his friends:
Ho! Scamander the Draught of my Fathers;199
Erewhile where thy yellow sand trends

Thy nursling, a maiden,

I grew sorrow-laden,

But now round Cocytus and Acheron soon

Shall I wake the dull banks with my dark-wailing tune.200

CHORUS.

STROPHE X.

What word is this, too keenly clear,

That thou hast hymnëd in mine ear?

A child might ken, man's veriest babe would know The burden of those syllables of woe.

I too with dread like death am smitten;

My heart with fang of blood is bitten ;
I ache to list thy piteous plaint

At harrowing fortune's harsh constraint :
Marvels, sad marvels these for me, alas! to hear.

CASSANDRA.

ANTISTROPHE IX.

Ho! travail and toil, the sore travail

Of a city to utter doom swept !

Ho! the meadow-kine slaughtered by thousands

For the feasts at my Fathers'-tower kept.

At hand is no curing

For Troy's sad enduring;

But this as she bears it, my city must bear :

And I fling me to earth in my hot soul's despair.201

CHORUS.

[She falls as in a swoon.

ANTISTROPHE X.

The words that thou hast hymnëd o'er
Well follow what have gone before:
But who the God of evil heart and eye
That from above down-lighting heavily,"
Would bid thy lips sad music borrow,
And drive thee to thy dirge of sorrow,
Thy sad dark dirge of suffering
And woe with death upon its wing?

202

Dark is the end—my sight is dark—I can no more

CASSANDRA.

[Suddenly becoming calm, rises and speaks solemnly and clearly.] No more, then, shall my burthen, maiden-eyed, Peer from its veils like a young-wedded bride,203 But bright and sparkling toward the sunrise bright Blowing shall sweep, and like a wave in might, A mightier woe than this shall surge against the light. But mark! I rede no more from riddles ;-ye With fellow-pace204 bear witness unto me,

While, like a hound with nose on earth stooped low,
I scent the trail of sins done long ago.

For from this roof no more yon quire shall flee,
Harmonious, but of dreadful harmony, 205

So dread its mutterings: yea, a Masque-that drank
Man's blood,206 until its hardihood grew rank-
Yet in the house abides; a revel rout

Of fellow-Furies hard to be thrust out:

A hymn they hymn, while by the Domes they bide-
The Ban Primarchal-and from side to side

On him their curse spit forth, who dared to tread
Upon the honour of his brother's bed.207

Well-do I hit the matter archer-wise,

Or have I missed my mark, and in your eyes
Stand forth a witch, a prophetess of lies—
A strolling mummer knocking at your door?
Nay, swear a solemn oath the event before,
And bear me witness, when I am no more;
That, from no tale did I my knowledge win
Of the old crimes that haunt this House of Sin

CHORUS.

Would heaven an oath-right nobly plight-might be The healer of all sorrows: but at thee

I marvel much-that, bred beyond the sea,