Darker dawned the song with stormier wings above the watch-fire spread [_Ep. 2._ Whence from Ida toward the hill of Hermes leapt the light that said Troy was fallen, a torch funereal for the king's triumphal head. Dire indeed the birth of Leda's womb that had God's self to sire Bloomed, a flower of love that stung the soul with fangs that gnaw like fire: But the twin-born human-fathered sister-flower bore fruit more dire. Scarce the cry that called on airy heaven and all swift winds on wing, Wells of river-heads, and countless laugh of waves past reckoning, Earth which brought forth all, and the orbed sun that looks on everything, Scarce that cry fills yet men's hearts more full of heart-devouring dread Than the murderous word said mocking, how the child whose blood he shed Might clasp fast and kiss her father where the dead salute the dead. But the latter note of anguish from the lips that mocked her lord, When her son's hand bared against the breast that suckled him his sword, How might man endure, O AEschylus, to hear it and record? How might man endure, being mortal yet, O thou most highest, to hear? How record, being born of woman? Surely not thy Furies near, Surely this beheld, this only, blasted hearts to death with fear. Not the hissing hair, nor flakes of blood that oozed from eyes of fire, Nor the snort of savage sleep that snuffed the hungering heart's desire Where the hunted prey found hardly space and harbour to respire; She whose likeness called them--"Sleep ye, ho? what need of you that sleep?" (Ah, what need indeed, where she was, of all shapes that night may keep Hidden dark as death and deeper than men's dreams of hell are deep?) She the murderess of her husband, she the huntress of her son, More than ye was she, the shadow that no God withstands but one, Wisdom equal-eyed and stronger and more splendid than the sun. Yea, no God may stand betwixt us and the shadows of our deeds, Nor the light of dreams that lighten darkness, nor the prayer that pleads, But the wisdom equal-souled with heaven, the light alone that leads. Light whose law bids home those childless children of eternal night, Soothed and reconciled and mastered and transmuted in men's sight Who behold their own souls, clothed with darkness once, now clothed with light. King of kings and father crowned of all our fathers crowned of yore, Lord of all the lords of song, whose head all heads bow down before, Glory be to thee from all thy sons in all tongues evermore.