Fragment Of An Antigone

THE CHORUS     Well hath he done who hath seizd happiness.     For little do the all-containing Hours,     Though opulent, freely give.     Who, weighing that life well     Fortune presents unprayd,     Declines her ministry, and carves his own:     And, justice not infringd,     Makes his own welfare his unswervd-from law.     He does well too, who keeps that clue the mild     Birth-Goddess and the austere Fates first gave.     For from the clay when these     Bring him, a weeping child,     First to the light, and mark     A country for him, kinsfolk, and a home,     Unguided he remains,     Till the Fates come again, alone, with death.     In little companies,     And, our own place once left,     Ignorant where to stand, or whom to avoid,     By city and household groupd, we live: and many shocks     Our order heaven-ordaind     Must every day endure.     Voyages, exiles, hates, dissensions, wars.     Besides what waste He makes,     The all-hated, order-breaking.     Without friend, city, or home,     Death, who dissevers all.     Him then I praise, who dares     To self-selected good     Prefer obedience to the primal law,     Which consecrates the ties of blood: for these, indeed,     Are to the Gods a care:     That touches but himself.     For every day man may be linkd and loos d     With strangers: but the bond     Original, deep-inwound,     Of blood, can he not bind     Nor, if Fate binds, not bear.     But hush! Haemon, whom Antigone,     Robbing herself of life in burying,     Against Creons law, Polynices,     Robs of a lovd bride; pale, imploring,     Waiting her passage,     Forth from the palace hitherward comes.     HAEMON     No, no, old men, Creon I curse not.     I weep, Thebans,     One than Creon crueller far.     For he, he, at least, by slaying her,     August laws doth mightily vindicate:     But thou, too-bold, headstrong, pitiless,     Ah me!, honourest more than thy lover,     O Antigone,     A dead, ignorant, thankless corpse.     THE CHORUS     Nor was the love untrue     Which the Dawn-Goddess bore     To that fair youth she erst     Leaving the salt sea-beds     And coming flushd over the stormy frith     Of loud Euripus, saw     Saw and snatchd, wild with love,     From the pine-dotted spurs     Of Parnes, where thy waves,     Asopus, gleam rock-hemmd;     The Hunter of the Tanagraean Field.     But him, in his sweet prime,     By severance immature,     By Artemis soft shafts,     She, though a Goddess born,     Saw in the rocky isle of Delos die.     Such end oertook that love.     For she desird to make     Immortal mortal man,     And blend his happy life,     Far from the Gods, with hers:     To him postponing an eternal law.     HAEMON     But, like me, she, wroth, complaining,     Succumbd to the envy of unkind Gods:     And, her beautiful arms unclasping,     Her fair Youth unwillingly gave.     THE CHORUS     Nor, though enthrond too high     To fear assault of envious Gods,     His belovd Argive Seer would Zeus retain     From his appointed end     In this our Thebes: but when     His flying steeds came near     To cross the steep Ismenian glen,     The broad Earth opend and whelmd them and him;     And through the void air sang     At large his enemys spear.     And fain would Zeus have savd his tired son     Beholding him where the Two Pillars stand     Oer the sun-reddend Western Straits:     Or at his work in that dim lower world.     Fain would he have recalld     The fraudulent oath which bound     To a much feebler wight the heroic man:     But he preferrd Fate to his strong desire.     Nor did there need less than the burning pile     Under the towering Trachis crags,     And the Spercheius vale, shaken with groans,     And the rousd Maliac gulph,     And scard Oetaean snows,     To achieve his sons deliverance, O my child.