_Chorus:_ When in the tomb the dead is laid, When the last rites of love are paid; When eyes no more behold the light, Closed in the sleep of endless night; Survives there aught, can we believe? Or does an idle tale deceive? 375 What boots it, then, to yield the breath A willing sacrifice to death, If still we gain no dreamless peace, And find from living no release? Say, do we, dying, end all pain? Does no least part of us remain? When from this perishable clay The flitting breath has sped away; Does then the soul that dissolution share And vanish into elemental air? 380 Whate'er the morning sunbeam knows, Whate'er his setting rays disclose; Whate'er is bathed by Ocean wide, In ebbing or in flowing tide: Time all shall snatch with hungry greed, With mythic Pegasean speed. 385 Swift is the course of stars in flight, Swiftly the moon repairs her light; Swiftly the changing seasons go, While time speeds on with endless flow: But than all these, with speed more swift, Toward fated nothingness we drift. 390 For when within the tomb we're laid, No soul remains, no hov'ring shade. Like curling smoke, like clouds before the blast, This animating spirit soon has passed. 395 Since naught remains, and death is naught But life's last goal, so swiftly sought; Let those who cling to life abate Their fond desires, and yield to fate; And those who fear death's fabled gloom, Bury their cares within the tomb. Soon shall grim time and yawning night In their vast depths engulf us quite; 400 Impartial death demands the whole-- The body slays nor spares the soul. Dark Taenara and Pluto fell, And Cerberus, grim guard of hell-- All these but empty rumors seem, 405 The pictures of a troubled dream. Where then will the departed spirit dwell? Let those who never came to being tell. ACT III [_Enter_ Andromache, _leading the little_ Astyanax.]