[_Exit_ PENTHEUS _into the Castle_. DIONYSUS. Damsels, the lion walketh to the net! He finds his Bacchae now, and sees and dies, And pays for all his sin!--O Dionyse, This is thine hour and thou not far away. Grant us our vengeance!--First, O Master, stay The course of reason in him, and instil A foam of madness. Let his seeing will, Which ne'er had stooped to put thy vesture on, Be darkened, till the deed is lightly done. Grant likewise that he find through all his streets Loud scorn, this man of wrath and bitter threats That made Thebes tremble, led in woman's guise. I go to fold that robe of sacrifice On Pentheus, that shall deck him to the dark, His mother's gift!--So shall he learn and mark God's true Son, Dionyse, in fulness God, Most fearful, yet to man most soft of mood. [_Exit_ DIONYSUS, _following_ PENTHEUS _into the Castle_. CHORUS. _Some Maidens._ Will they ever come to me, ever again, The long long dances, On through the dark till the dim stars wane? Shall I feel the dew on my throat, and the stream Of wind in my hair? Shall our white feet gleam In the dim expanses? Oh, feet of a fawn to the greenwood fled, Alone in the grass and the loveliness; Leap of the hunted, no more in dread, Beyond the snares and the deadly press: Yet a voice still in the distance sounds, A voice and a fear and a haste of hounds; O wildly labouring, fiercely fleet, Onward yet by river and glen . . . Is it joy or terror, ye storm-swift feet? . . . To the dear lone lands untroubled of men, Where no voice sounds, and amid the shadowy green The little things of the woodland live unseen. What else is Wisdom? What of man's endeavour Or God's high grace, so lovely and so great? To stand from fear set free, to breathe and wait; To hold a hand uplifted over Hate; And shall not Loveliness be loved for ever? _Others._ O Strength of God, slow art thou and still, Yet failest never! On them that worship the Ruthless Will, On them that dream, doth His judgment wait. Dreams of the proud man, making great And greater ever, Things which are not of God. In wide And devious coverts, hunter-wise, He coucheth Time's unhasting stride, Following, following, him whose eyes Look not to Heaven. For all is vain, The pulse of the heart, the plot of the brain, That striveth beyond the laws that live. And is thy Faith so much to give, Is it so hard a thing to see, That the Spirit of God, whate'er it be, The Law that abides and changes not, ages long, The Eternal and Nature-born--these things be strong?