"A gleam--a gleam--from Ida's height, By the fire--god sent, it came; From watch to watch it leap'd that light, As a rider rode the flame! It shot through the startled sky; And the torch of that blazing glory Old Lemnos caught on high, On its holy promontory, And sent it on, the jocund sign, To Athos, mount of Jove divine. Wildly the while it rose from the isle, So that the might of the journeying light Skimm'd over the back of the gleaming brine! Farther and faster speeds it on, Till the watch that keep Macistus steep-- See it burst like a blazing sun! Doth Macistus sleep On his tower--clad steep? No! rapid and red doth the wild-fire sweep It flashes afar, on the wayward stream Of the wild Euripus, the rushing beam! It rouses the light on Messapion's height, And they feed its breath with the withered heath. But it may not stay! And away--away It bounds in its freshening might. Silent and soon, Like a broadened moon, It passes in sheen, Asopus green, [24] And bursts on Cithaeron gray. The warder wakes to the signal rays, And it swoops from the hill with a broader blaze, On--on the fiery glory rode-- Thy lonely lake, Gorgopis, glowed-- To Megara's Mount it came; They feed it again, And it streams amain A giant beard of flame! The headland cliffs that darkly down O'er the Saronic waters frown, Are pass'd with the swift one's lurid stride, And the huge rock glares on the glaring tide, With mightier march and fiercer power It gain'd Arachne's neighbouring tower-- Thence on our Argive roof its rest it won, Of Ida's fire the long-descended son Bright harbinger of glory and of joy! So first and last with equal honour crown'd, In solemn feasts the race-torch circles round. And these my heralds! this my SIGN OF PEACE! Lo! while we breathe, the victor lords of Greece, Stalk, in stern tumult, through the halls of Troy!" [25] In one of the earlier choruses, in which is introduced an episodical allusion to the abduction of Helen, occurs one of those soft passages so rare in Aeschylus, nor less exquisite than rare. The chorus suppose the minstrels of Menelaus thus to lament the loss of Helen:--