Yea, words with plumes wild on the wind and with helmets a-glancing,
With axles a-splinter and marble a-shiver, eftsoons
Shall bleed, as a man meets the shock of a Thought-builder's prancing
Stanzas of dusky dragoons.
The deep crest of his mane shall uprise as he slowly unlimbers
The long-drawn wrath of his brow, and lets loose with a roar
Epithets welded and screwed, like new torrent-swept timbers
Blown loose by a giant at war.
Then rises the man of the Mouth; then battleward flashes
A tester of verses, a smooth and serpentine tongue,
To dissect each phrase into mincemeat, and argue to ashes
That high-towered labour of lung!
The door opens again. Enter Euripides, Dionysus, and Aeschylus.
Euripides.
Pray, no advice to me! I won't give way;
I claim that I'm more master of my art.
Dionysus.
You hear him, Aeschylus. Why don't you speak?
Euripides.
He wants to open with an awful silence—
The blood-curdling reserve of his first scenes.
