A poem by Aeschylus (c. 525 – c. 456 Before Christ )
Now long and long from wintry Strymon blew
The weary, hungry, anchor-straining blasts,
The winds that wandering seamen dearly rue,
Nor spared the cables worn and groaning masts;
And, lingering on, in indolent delay,
Slow wasted all the strength of Greece away.
But when the shrill-voiced prophet ‘gan proclaim
That remedy more dismal and more dread
Than the drear weather blackening overhead,
And spoke in Artemis’ most awful name,
The sons of Atreus, ‘mid their armed peers,
Their sceptres dashed to earth, and each broke out in tears,
And thus the elder king began to say:
“Dire doom! to disobey the gods’ commands!
More dire, my child, mine house’s pride, to slay,
Dabbling in virgin blood a father’s hands.
Alas! alas! which way to fly?
As base deserter quit the host,
The pride and strength of our great league all lost?
Should I the storm-appeasing rite deny,
Will not their wrathfullest wrath rage up and swell?
Exact the virgin’s blood?-oh, would ‘t were o’er and well!”
So, ‘neath Necessity’s stern yoke he passed,
And his lost soul, with impious impulse veering,
Surrendered to the accursed unholy blast,
Warped to the dire extreme of human daring.
The frenzy of affliction still
Maddens, dire counselor, man’s soul to ill.
So he endured to be the priest
In that child-slaughtering rite unblest,
The first full offering of that host
In fatal war for a bad woman lost.
The prayers, the mute appeal to her hard sire,
Her youth, her virgin beauty,
Naught heeded they, the chiefs for war on fire.
So to the ministers of that dire duty
(First having prayed) the father gave the sign,
Like some soft kid, to lift her to the shrine.
There lay she prone,
Her graceful garments round her thrown;
But first her beauteous mouth around
Their violent bonds they wound,
With their rude inarticulate might,
Lest her dread curse the fatal house should smite.
But she her saffron robe to earth let fall:
The shaft of pity from her eye
Transpierced that awful priesthood-one and all.
Lovely as in a picture stood she by
As she would speak. Thus at her father’s feasts
The virgin, ‘mid the reveling guests,
Was wont with her chaste voice to supplicate
For her dear father an auspicious fate.
I saw no more! to speak more is not mine;
Not unfulfilled was Calchas’ lore divine.
Eternal justice still will bring
Wisdom out of suffering.
So to the fond desire farewell,
The inevitable future to foretell;
‘Tis but our woe to antedate;
Joint knit with joint, expands the full-formed fate.
Yet at the end of these dark days
May prospering weal return at length;
Thus in his spirit prays
He of the Apian land the sole remaining strength.
A few random poems:
- Robert Burns: Election Ballad: At the close of the contest for representing the Dumfries Burghs, 1790. Addressed to R. Graham, Esq. of Fintry.
- Robert Burns: The Banks Of Nith:
- Behold, from the land of the farther suns by Stephen Crane
- And ask ye why these sad tears stream? poem – Lord Alfred Tennyson poems
- Composed While The Author Was Engaged In Writing A Tract Occasioned By The Convention Of Cintra by William Wordsworth
- Whispering In Wattle Boughs
- Sonnet XIV. Addressed To The Same (Haydon) poem – John Keats poems
- Владимир Британишский – Другу
- Sonnet 81: Or I shall live your epitaph to make by William Shakespeare
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- The Arrivals by Sharon Olds
- The Uses of the Eye by Paul Blackburn
- Genesis by Vachel Lindsay
- Алексей Николаевич Толстой – Колыбельная
- A man feared that he might find an assassin by Stephen Crane
External links
Bat’s Poetry Page – more poetry by Fledermaus
Talking Writing Monster’s Page –
Batty Writing – the bat’s idle chatter, thoughts, ideas and observations, all original, all fresh
Poems in English
- Федор Сологуб – Слышу голос милой
- Федор Сологуб – Словно лепится сурепица
- Федор Сологуб – Словами горькими надменных отрицаний
- Федор Сологуб – Слепой судьбе противореча
- Федор Сологуб – Сладко мечтается мне
- Федор Сологуб – Скупа Филис, но пыл мятежный
- Федор Сологуб – Скоро солнце встанет
- Федор Сологуб – Под холодною властью тумана
- Федор Сологуб – Под сению креста рыдающая мать
- Федор Сологуб – Под кустами
- Федор Сологуб – Под черёмухой цветущей
- Федор Сологуб – Побеждайте радость
- Федор Сологуб – Плачет безутешная вдова
- Федор Сологуб – Певице
- Федор Сологуб – Моя верховная воля
- Федор Сологуб – Лихо
- Федор Сологуб – Лиловато-розовый закат
- Федор Сологуб – Либава, Либава, товарная душа
- Федор Сологуб – Лежу и дышу осторожно
- Федор Сологуб – Лесная тропа
More external links (open in a new tab):
Doska or the Board – write anything
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Parallel Translations of Poetry
The Poetry Repository – an online library of poems, poetry, verse and poetic works
Aeschylus (525 Before Christ to 456 B.C.) was an ancient Greek author of Greek tragedy, and is often described as the father of tragedy. Academics’ knowledge of the genre begins with his work, and understanding of earlier Greek tragedy is largely based on inferences made from reading his surviving plays. According to Aristotle, he expanded the number of characters in the theatre and allowed conflict among them.