Page:Four Plays of Aeschylus (1908) Morshead.djvu/128

The king that was good to his realm, sufficing, fulfilled of his sway,
A lord that was peer of the gods, the pride of the bygone day!
Then could we show to the skies great hosts and a glorious name,
And laws that were stable in might; as towers they guarded our fame!
There without woe or disaster we came from the foe and the fight,
In triumph, enriched with the spoil, to the land and the city's delight.
What towns ere the Halys he passed! what towns ere he came to the West,
To the main and the isles of the Strymon, and the Thracian region possess'd!
And those that stand back from the main, enringed by their fortified wall,
Gave o'er to Darius, the king, the sceptre and sway over all!
Those too by the channel of Helle, where southward it broadens and glides,
By the inlets, Propontis! of thee, and the strait of the Pontic tides,
And the isles that lie fronting our sea-board, and the Eastland looks on each one,
Lesbos and Chios and Paros, and Samos with olive-trees grown,
And Naxos, and Myconos' rock, and Tenos with Andros hard by,
And isles that in midmost Aegean, aloof from the continent, lie—
And Lemnos and Icaros' hold—all these to his sceptre were bowed,