Page:Atalanta in Calydon - a tragedy (IA atalantaincalydo00swinrich).pdf/129

MELEAGER.

⁠Not the life of men’s veins,

⁠Not of flesh that conceives;
⁠But the grace that remains,
⁠The fair beauty that cleaves
To the life of the rains in the grasses, the life of the dews on
⁠the leaves.

CHORUS.

⁠Thou wert helmsman and chief;

⁠Wilt thou turn in an hour,
⁠Thy limbs to the leaf,
⁠Thy face to the flower,
Thy blood to the water, thy soul to the gods who divide
⁠and devour?

MELEAGER.

⁠The years are hungry,

⁠They wail all their days;
⁠The gods wax angry
⁠And weary of praise;
And who shall bridle their lips? and who shall straiten their
⁠ways?