crieth for death:
O stormy battlements that red fire hath riven,
And the sword's angry breath!

[_A new thought comes to_ HECUBA; _she kneels and beats the earth with
her hands_.

HECUBA.

[_Strophe_.

O Earth, Earth of my children; hearken! and O
mine own,
Ye have hearts and forget not, ye in the darkness
lying!

LEADER.

Now hast thou found thy prayer[48], crying to them that
are gone.

HECUBA.

Surely my knees are weary, but I kneel above your
head;
Hearken, O ye so silent! My hands beat your bed!

LEADER.

I, I am near thee;
I kneel to thy dead to hear thee,
Kneel to mine own in the darkness; O husband, hear
my crying!

HECUBA.

Even as the beasts they drive, even as the loads they
bear,

LEADER.
(Pain; O pain!)

HECUBA.

We go to the house of bondage. Hear, ye dead, O
hear!

LEADER.
(Go, and come not again!)

HECUBA.

Priam, mine own Priam,
Lying so lowly,
Thou in thy nothingness,
Shelterless, comfortless,
See'st thou the thing I am?
Know'st thou my bitter stress?

LEADER.

Nay, thou art naught to him!
Out of the strife there came,
Out of the noise and shame,
Making his eyelids dim,
Death, the Most Holy!
[_The fire and smoke rise constantly higher_.

HECUBA.

[_Antistrophe_.
O high houses of Gods, beloved streets of my birth,
Ye have found the way of the sword, the fiery and
blood-red river!

LEADER.

Fall, and men shall forget you! Ye shall lie in the
gentle earth.

HECUBA.

The dust as smoke riseth; it spreadeth wide its wing;
It maketh me as a shadow, and my City a vanished
thing!

LEADER.

Out on the smoke she goeth,
And her name no man knoweth;
And the cloud is northward, southward; Troy is gone
for ever!

[_A great crash is heard, and the Wall is lost in smoke and darkness_.

HECUBA.

Ha! Marked ye? Heard ye? The crash of the
towers that fall!

LEADER.

All is gone!

HECUBA.

Wrath in the earth and quaking and a flood that
sweepeth all,

LEADER.

And passeth on!
[_The Greek trumpet sounds_.

HECUBA.

Farewell!--O spirit grey,
Whatso is coming,
Fail not from under me.
Weak limbs, why tremble ye?
Forth where the new long day
Dawneth to slavery!

CHORUS.

Farewell from parting lips,
Farewell!--Come, I and thou,
Whatso may wait us now,
Forth to the long Greek ships[49]
And the sea's foaming.

[_The trumpet sounds again, and the Women go out in