Part 6 (2/2)

A very weariness of joy Fell with the evening over Troy: And lutes of Afric mingled there With Phrygian songs: and many a maiden, With white feet glancing light as air, Made happy music through the gloom: And fires on many an inward room All night broad-flas.h.i.+ng, flung their glare On laughing eyes and slumber-laden.

A MAIDEN.

I was among the dancers there To Artemis[30], and glorying sang Her of the Hills, the Maid most fair, Daughter of Zeus: and, lo, there rang A shout out of the dark, and fell Deathlike from street to street, and made A silence in the citadel: And a child cried, as if afraid, And hid him in his mother's veil.

Then stalked the Slayer from his den, The hand of Pallas served her well!

O blood, blood of Troy was deep About the streets and altars then: And in the wedded rooms of sleep, Lo, the desolate dark alone, And headless things, men stumbled on.

And forth, lo, the women go, The crown of War, the crown of Woe, To bear the children of the foe And weep, weep, for Ilion!

[_As the song ceases a chariot is seen approaching from the town, laden with spoils. On it sits a mourning Woman with a child in her arms._

LEADER.

Lo, yonder on the heaped crest Of a Greek wain, Andromache[31], As one that o'er an unknown sea Tosseth; and on her wave-borne breast Her loved one clingeth, Hector's child, Astyanax.... O most forlorn Of women, whither go'st thou, borne 'Mid Hector's bronzen arms, and piled Spoils of the dead, and pageantry Of them that hunted Ilion down?

Aye, richly thy new lord shall crown The mountain shrines of Thessaly!

ANDROMACHE [_Strophe I._

Forth to the Greek I go, Driven as a beast is driven.

HEC. Woe, woe!

AND. Nay, mine is woe: Woe to none other given, And the song and the crown therefor!

HEC. O Zeus!

AND. He hates thee sore!

HEC. Children!

AND. No more, no more To aid thee: their strife is striven!

HECUBA.

[_Antistrophe I._

Troy, Troy is gone!

AND. Yea, and her treasure parted.

HEC. Gone, gone, mine own Children, the n.o.ble-hearted!

AND. Sing sorrow....

HEC. For me, for me!

AND. Sing for the Great City, That falleth, falleth to be A shadow, a fire departed.

ANDROMACHE.

[_Strophe 2._

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