A cry in the rafters then
    Rang, and the marble dome: 
  “Mercy of God, not thou,
  “Woman!  To slay me now,
  “After the harvests ten
    “Now, at the last, come home!”

  O Fate shall turn as the tide,
    Turn, with a doom of tears
  For the flying heart too fond;
  A doom for the broken bond. 
  She hailed him there in his pride,
    Home from the perilous years,

  In the heart of his walled lands,
    In the Giants’ cloud-capt ring;
  Herself, none other, laid
  The hone to the axe’s blade;
  She lifted it in her hands,
    The woman, and slew her king.

  Woe upon spouse and spouse,
    Whatso of evil sway
  Held her in that distress! 
  Even as a lioness
  Breaketh the woodland boughs
    Starving, she wrought her way.

VOICE OF CLYTEMNESTRA.

O Children, Children; in the name of God,
Slay not your mother!

A WOMAN.

Did ye hear a cry
Under the rafters?

ANOTHER.

I weep too, yea, I;
Down on the mother’s heart the child hath trod!
[A death-cry from within.

ANOTHER.

God bringeth Justice in his own slow tide. 
  Aye, cruel is thy doom; but thy deeds done
  Evil, thou piteous woman, and on one
    Whose sleep was by thy side!

[The door bursts open, and ORESTES and ELECTRA come forth in disorder.  Attendants bring out the bodies of CLYTEMNESTRA and AEGISTHUS.

LEADER.

Lo, yonder, in their mother’s new-spilt gore
Red-garmented and ghastly, from the door
They reel....  O horrible!  Was it agony
Like this, she boded in her last wild cry? 
There lives no seed of man calamitous,
Nor hath lived, like this seed of Tantalus.

ORESTES.

O Dark of the Earth, O God,
  Thou to whom all is plain;
Look on my sin, my blood,
  This horror of dead things twain;
Gathered as one they lie
Slain; and the slayer was I,
  I, to pay for my pain!

ELECTRA.

Let tear rain upon tear,
  Brother:  but mine is the blame. 
A fire stood over her,
  And out of the fire I came,
I, in my misery.... 
And I was the child at her knee. 
  ‘Mother’ I named her name.

CHORUS.

Alas for Fate, for the Fate of thee,
O Mother, Mother of Misery: 
And Misery, lo, hath turned again,
To slay thee, Misery and more,
Even in the fruit thy body bore. 
Yet hast thou Justice, Justice plain,
  For a sire’s blood spilt of yore!

ORESTES.

Apollo, alas for the hymn
  Thou sangest, as hope in mine ear! 
The Song was of Justice dim,
  But the Deed is anguish clear;
And the Gift, long nights of fear,
  Of blood and of wandering,
  Where cometh no Greek thing,
Nor sight, nor sound on the air. 
Yea, and beyond, beyond,
  Roaming—­what rest is there? 
Who shall break bread with me? 
Who, that is clean, shall see
And hate not the blood-red hand,
  His mother’s murderer?