II.— ORESTES TO THE FURIES

Ye are no madman's dreams, then!...

Out sword! Backward tread

O curs that circle the bright blade ye dread.

Back to where dead-eyed Hate, your shameful priest,

Prepares your bowl of blood, your fleshy feast:

Where in the thronged and long-hushed marketplace

Ten thousand faces gaze on one pale face;

Where the lost victim feels the lonely ban

Of death terrific loosed by man on man;

Where black blood froths, where drives the whirring wheel;

Where hands, ears, lips fall lopped of instant steel;

Where the intent and dazzling pincher plies

Till to the silent tortures Anguish cries

At once for death! and when sharp death is given,

Others, corded and swooned, antic and sick, are driven

Under the axe, whose sheeny flash and fall

Bids the block ring as pile beneath the maul,

Till Man's protest dies to a whisper, dumb

Beneath the maddened rolling of Death's drum!