Erechtheus - 1876 Author:Algernon Charles Swinburne Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHTHONIA. O Goddess, be good to thy people, that in them dominion and freedom may dwell. CHORUS. Turn from us the strengths of the sea. 1090 CHTHONIA. ... more » Let glory's and theirs be one name in the mouths of all nations made glad with the sun. CHORUS. For the cloud is blown back with thy breath. CHTHONIA. With the long last love of mine eyes I salute thee, O land where my days now are done. CHORUS. But her life shall be born of thy death. CHTHONIA. I put on me the darkness thy shadow, my mother, and symbol, O Earth, of my name. CHORUS. For thine was her witness from birth. CHTHONIA. In thy likeness I come to thee darkling, a daughter whose dawn and her even are the same. CHORUS. Be thine heart to her gracious, O Earth. CHTHONIA. To thine own kind be kindly, for thy son's name's sake. CHORUS. That sons unborn may praise thee and thy firstborn son. 1100 CHTHONIA. Give me thy sleep, who give thee all my life awake. CHORUS. Too swift a sleep, ere half the web of day be spun. CHTHONIA. Death brings the shears or ever life wind up the weft. CHORUS. Their edge is ground and sharpened; who shall stay his hand ? CHTHONIA. The woof is thin, a small short life, with no thread left. CHORUS. Yet hath it strength, stretched out, to shelter all the land. CHTHONIA. Too frail a tent for covering, and a screen too strait. CHORUS. Yet broad enough for buckler shall thy sweet life be. CHTHONIA. A little bolt to bar off battle from the gate. 1109 CHORUS. A wide sea-wall, that shatters the besieging sea. CHTHONIA. I lift up mine eyes from the skirts of the shadow, [Str. From the border of death to the limits of light; O streams and rivers of mountain and meadow That hallow the last of my sight, O fath...« less