Page:Parerga.djvu/33
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SCENE FROM THE EUMENDIES
23
Stern is our wrath, but justly stern;
And they whose hands from guilt are pure
The Furies' terrors never learn;
The Innocent may sleep secure.
And they whose hands from guilt are pure
The Furies' terrors never learn;
The Innocent may sleep secure.
But the Murderer, who tries
His hands to conceal
Which the blood-stain dyes,
We, just to the dead,
Who for vengeance appeal,
Accuse of pollution,
And dire retribution
Exact for the crime from the guilty head.
His hands to conceal
Which the blood-stain dyes,
We, just to the dead,
Who for vengeance appeal,
Accuse of pollution,
And dire retribution
Exact for the crime from the guilty head.
Night! my invocation hear;
Night! who barest me to be
To the dead a scourge of fear,
And those the light of life that see:
Hear me, Mother, for the Son
Of Latona injures me,
And strives to rescue from me one
On whom the curse of Matricide must be!
Night! who barest me to be
To the dead a scourge of fear,
And those the light of life that see:
Hear me, Mother, for the Son
Of Latona injures me,
And strives to rescue from me one
On whom the curse of Matricide must be!
O'er our victim raise the strain,
To smite and warp the jarring brain,
To sway the will, the thoughts to bind,
To light up madness in the mind:
To smite and warp the jarring brain,
To sway the will, the thoughts to bind,
To light up madness in the mind: