The galley? gone? Ye Gods! is it not gone? Here, by this rock it lay but yesternight. Gone! through this track its keel slid down by the shore; And I slept calmly as it cleft the sea. Gone? gone? where gone?--that sail! 'tis his! 'tis his! Return, O Theseus! Theseus! love! return! Thou wilt return. Thou dost but try my love? Thou wilt return to make my foolish fears Thy jest. Return, and I will laugh with thee! Return! return! and canst thou hear my shrieks, Nor heed my cry! And wouldst thou have me weep, Weep! I that wept--white with wild fear--the while Thou slew'st the abhorred monster! If it be Thou takest pleasure in these bitter tears, Come back, and I will weep myself away---- A streaming Niobe--to win thy smiles! O stony heart! why wilt thou wring me thus! O heart more cold unto my shrilling cries Than these wild hills that wail to thee, return, Than all these island rocks that shriek, return. Come back! Thou seest me rend this blinding hair; Hast thou not sworn each tress thou didst so prize, That sight of home, and thy gray father's face, Were less a joy to thee, and lightlier held! Thy sail! thy sail! O do my watery eyes Take part with thee, so loved! to crush me down! Gone! Gone! and wilt thou--wilt thou not return? Heartless, unfearing the just Gods, wilt thou, Theseus! my lord! my love! desert me thus! Thus leave me, stranger in this strange wild land, Friendless, afar from all I left for thee, Crete, my old home, and my ancestral halls, My father's love, and the remembered haunts Of childhood,--all that knew me--all I knew---- All--all--woe! woe! that I shall know no more. Why didst thou lure me, craftiest, from my home? There if, thy love grown cold, thou thus hadst fled, I had found comfort in fond word and smiles Familiar, and the pity of my kin, Tears wept with mine--tears wept by loving eyes, That had washed out thy traces from my heart, Perchance, in years, had given me back to joy. O that thy steps had never trodden Crete! O that these eyes had never on thee fed! O that, weak heart! I ne'er had looked my love. Or looking, thou hadst thrust it back with hate! Did I not save thee? I? was it for this, Despite Crete's hate--despite my father's wrath, Perchance to slay me, that I ventured all For thee--for thee--forgetting all for thee! Thou know'st it all,--who knows it if not thou, Save the just Gods--the Gods who hear my cry, And mutter vengeance o'er thy flying head, Forsworn! And, lo! on thy accused track Rush the dread furies; lo! afar I see The hoary Ægeus, watching for his son, His son that nears him still with hastening oars, Unknown, that nears him but to dash him down, Moaning, to darkness and the dreadful shades The while, thy grief wails after him in vain: