I wish I were as in the years of old
While yet the blessed daylight made itself
Ruddy thro both the roofs of sight, and woke
These eyes, now dull, but then so keen to seek
The meanings ambushd under all they saw,
The flight of birds, the flame of sacrifice,
What omens may foreshadow fate to man
And woman, and the secret of the Gods.
My son, the Gods, despite of human prayer,
Are slower to forgive than human kings.
The great God, Arês, burns in anger still
Against the guiltless heirs of him from Tyre
Our Cadmus, out of whom thou art, who found
Beside the springs of Dircê, smote, and stilld
Thro all its folds the multitudinous beast
The dragon, which our trembling fathers calld
The Gods own son.
A tale, that told to me,
When but thine age, by age...