In sign of sweet land reconciled with sea And heavenlike earth with heaven; such promise-pledge I daughter without mother born of God To the most woful mother born of man Plight for continual comfort. Hail, and live Beyond all human hap of mortal doom Happy; for so my sire hath sworn and I. PRAXITHEA. O queen Athena, from a heart made whole Take as thou givest us blessing; never tear 1740 Shall stain for shame nor groan untune the song That as a bird shall spread and fold its wings Here in thy praise for ever, and fulfil The whole world's crowning city crowned with thee As the sun's eye fulfils and crowns with sight The circling crown of heaven. There is no grief Great as the joy to be made one in will With him that is the heart and rule of life And thee, God born of God; thy name is ours, And thy large grace more great than our desire. 1750 CHORUS. From the depth of the springs of my spirit a fountain is poured of thanksgiving, My country, my mother, for thee, That thy dead for their death shall have life in thy sight and a name everliving At heart of thy people to be. In the darkness of change on the waters of time they shall turn from afar To the beam of this dawn for a beacon, the light of these pyres for a star. They shall see thee who love and take comfort, who hate thee shall see and take warning, Our mother that makest us free; And the sons of thine earth shall have help of the waves that made war on their morning, And friendship and fame of the sea. 1760 NOTES. v. 497-503. Cf. Eurip. Fr. _Erechtheus_, 46-49. v. 522-530. Id. 32-40. v. 778. Æsch. _Supp._ 524-6. v. 983. Soph. Fr. (_Oreithyia_) 655. ὑπέρ τε πόντον πάντ' ἐπ' ἔσχατα χθονὸς νυκτός τε πηγὰς οὐρανοῦ τ' ἀναπτυχὰς, φοίβου παλαιὸν κῆπον. v. 1163. Æsch. Fr. (_Danaides_) 38. ὄμβρος δ' ἀπ' εὐνάεντος οὐρανοῦ πεσὼν ἔκυσε γαῖαν. v. 1168. Id. δενδρῶτις ὥρα δ' ἐκ νοτίζοντος γάμου τέλειός ἐστι. v. 1749. '_God born of God._' Soph. _Ant._ 834. θεός τοι καὶ θεογεννής. LONDON: PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED, STAMFORD STREET AND CHARING CROSS. End of Project Gutenberg's Erechtheus, by Algernon Charles Swinburne