CHORUS. I mark his words, yet, dark and deep, My heart’s alarm forbiddeth sleep! Close-clinging cares around my soul Enkindle fears beyond control, Presageful of what doom may fall From the great leaguer of the wall! So a poor dove is faint with fear For her weak nestlings, while anew Glides on the snaky ravisher! In troop and squadron, hand on hand, They climb and throng, and hemmed we stand, While on the warders of our town The flinty shower comes hurtling down! Gods born of Zeus! put forth your might For Cadmus’ city, realm, and right! What nobler land shall e’er be yours, If once ye give to hostile powers The deep rich soil, and Dirce’s wave, The nursing stream, Poseidon gave And Tethys’ children? Up and save! Cast on the ranks that hem us round A deadly panic, make them fling Their arms in terror on the ground, And die in carnage! thence shall spring High honour for our clan and king! Come at our wailing cry, and stand As thronèd sentries of our land! For pity and sorrow it were that this immemorial town Should sink to be slave of the spear, to dust and to ashes gone down, By the gods of Achaean worship and arms of Achaean might Sacked and defiled and dishonoured, its women the prize of the fight— That, haled by the hair as a steed, their mantles dishevelled and torn, The maiden and matron alike should pass to the wedlock of scorn! I hear it arise from the city, the manifold wail of despair— _Woe, woe for the doom that shall be_—as in grasp of the foeman they fare! For a woe and a weeping it is, if the maiden inviolate flower Is plucked by the foe in his might, not culled in the bridal bower! Alas for the hate and the horror—how say it?—less hateful by far Is the doom to be slain by the sword, hewn down in the carnage of war! For wide, ah! wide is the woe when the foeman has mounted the wall; There is havoc and terror and flame, and the dark smoke broods over all, And wild is the war-god’s breath, as in frenzy of conquest he springs, And pollutes with the blast of his lips the glory of holiest things!