O father! were the tongue of Orpheus mine, To charm the stones with song to follow me, And throw the spell of words on whom I would, So should I speak. But now, as I am wise In tears, and only tears, I speak through these. This body which my mother bore to thee, Low at thy knees I lay, imploring thus To spare my unripe youth. Sweet is the light To human eyes; oh! force me not to see Those dark things under earth! I first of all Called thee by name of “father”; heard “my child”; I first here on thy knees gave and received The little, dear, caressing joys of love. And I recall thy words: “O girl,” thou saidst, “Shall ever I behold thee in thy home Happy and prosperous as becomes thy sire?” And my words too, while then my tiny hand Clung to thy beard, as now I cling: “And I, Some day when thou art old, within my halls, Dearer for this, shall I receive thee, father; And with such love repay thy fostering care?” These words still in my memory lodge; but thou Must have forgotten, willing now my death. By Pelops and thy father Atreus, oh, And by my mother, who a second time Must travail for my life, oh, hear my prayer! Why should the wrongs of Helen fall on me, Or why came Paris for my evil fate? Yet turn thine eyes upon me, look and kiss, That dying I at least may have of thee This pledge of memory, if my prayer is vain. O brother, little and of little aid, Yet add thy tears to mine, and with them plead To save thy sister. For in children still Some sense of coming evil moves the heart. See, father, how he pleads who cannot speak; Thou wilt have mercy and regard my youth. From this passage, which furnished Landor with the theme of one of the most beautiful, in some respects the most classical, of modern poems, it is natural to turn to the still more exquisite account of the death of Polyxena, the youngest daughter of Hecuba, slain as a peace-offering to the shade of Achilles. The brave words and self-surrender of the girl are related to the stricken mother by the herald Talthybius: