_Chorus:_ The sight is past belief. Behold, This Atreus, fierce and bold of soul, By every cruel passion swayed, When first he saw his brother's face Was held in dumb amaze. No force is greater than the power Of Nature's ties of love. 'Tis true That wars with foreign foes endure; 550 But they whom true love once has bound Will ever feel its ties. When wrath, by some great cause aroused, Hath burst the bonds of amity, And raised the dreadful cry of war; When gleaming squadrons thunder down With champing steeds; when flashing swords, 555 By carnage-maddened Mars upreared, Gleam with a deadly rain of blows: E'en then for sacred piety Those warring hands will sheathe the sword And join in the clasp of peace. What god has given this sudden lull 560 In the midst of loud alarms? But now Throughout Mycenae's borders rang The noisy prelude of a strife 'Twixt brothers' arms. Here mothers pale Embraced their sons, and the trembling wife Looked on her arméd lord in fear, While the sword to his hand reluctant came, 565 Foul with the rust of peace. One strove to renew the tottering walls, And one to strengthen the shattered towers, And close the gates with iron bars; While on the battlements the guard 570 His anxious nightly vigils kept. The daily fear of war is worse Than war itself. But fallen now are the sword's dire threats, The deep-voiced trumpet-blare is still, And the shrill, harsh notes of the clarion 575 Are heard no more. While peace profound Broods once again o'er the happy state. So when, beneath the storm blast's lash, The heaving waves break on the shore Of Bruttium, and Scylla roars Responsive from her cavern's depths; Then, even within their sheltered port, 580 The sailors fear the foaming sea Which greedy Charybdis vomits up; And Cyclops dreads his father's rage Where he sits on burning Aetna's crag, Lest the deathless flames on his roaring forge 585 Be quenched by the overwhelming floods; When poor Laërtes feels the shock Of reeling Ithaca, and thinks That his island realm will be swallowed up: Then, if the fierce winds die away, The waves sink back in their quiet depths; And the sea, which of late the vessels feared, 590 Now far and wide with swelling sails Is overspread, while tiny skiffs Skim safely o'er its harmless breast; And one may count the very fish Deep down within the peaceful caves, Where but now, beneath the raging blast, The battered islands feared the sea. 595 No lot endureth long. For grief