What hand to heal, what voice to charm, Can e'er dispel this hideous harm? Whose skill save thine, Monarch Divine? Mine eyes, if such I saw, Would hail him from afar with trembling awe. Ah! ah! O vex me not, touch me not, leave me to rest, To sleep my last sleep on Earth's gentle breast. You touch me, you press me, you turn me again, You break me, you kill me! O pain! O pain! You have kindled the pang that had slumbered still. It comes, it hath seized me with tyrannous will! Where are ye, men, whom over Hellas wide This arm hath freed, and o'er the ocean-tide, And through rough brakes, from every monstrous thing? Yet now in mine affliction none will bring A sword to aid, a fire to quell this fire, O most unrighteous! nor to my desire Will come and quench the hateful life I hold With mortal stroke! Ah! is there none so bold? OLD M. Son of our hero, this hath mounted past My feeble force to cope with. Take him thou! Fresher thine eye and more the hope thou hast Than mine to save him. HYL. I support him now Thus with mine arm: but neither fleshly vest Nor inmost spirit can I lull to rest From torture. None may dream To wield this power, save he, the King supreme. HER. Son! Where art thou to lift me and hold me aright? It tears me, it kills me, it rushes in might, This cruel, devouring, unconquered pain Shoots forth to consume me. Again! again! O Fate! O Athena!--O son, at my word Have pity and slay me with merciful sword! Pity thy father, boy; with sharp relief Smite on my breast, and heal the wrathful grief Wherewith thy mother, God-abandoned wife, Hath wrought this ruin on her husband's life. O may I see her falling, even so As she hath thrown me, to like depth of woe! Sweet Hades, with swift death, Brother of Zeus, release my suffering breath! CH. Horror hath caught me as I hear this, woe, Racking our mighty one with mightier pain.