Seven warriors yonder, doughty chiefs of might,
By Ares, lord of fight, and by thy name,
Into the gore of sacrifice, have sworn
Blood-lapping Terror, Let our oath be heard
I wail in the stress of my terror,
and shrill is my cry of despair
The foemen roll forth from their camp as a billow
and onward they bear
Their horsemen are swift on the front,
the dust rises up to the sky,
A signal, though speechless, of doom,
a herald more clear than a cry!
O gods high-throned in bliss,
we must crouch at the shrines in your home!
Not here must we tarry and wail:
shield clashes on shield as they come
And now, even now is the hour
for the robes and the chaplets of prayer!
Mine eyes feel the flash of the sword,
the clang is instinct with the spear!
And seven high chieftains of war,
with spear and with panoply bold,
Are set, by the law of the lot,
to storm the seven gates of our hold!
Away with outcry vain and barbarous,
That shall avail not, in a general doom!
But I will back, and, with six chosen men
Myself the seventh, to confront the foe
(Pressageful of what doom may fall
The great leaguer of the wall!)
Nay-since the god is urgent for our doom,
Let Laius' house, by Phoebus loathed and scorned,
Follow the gale of destiny, and win
Its great inheritance, the gulf of hell!
O grievous the fate
That attends upon wrong!
Stern ghost of our sire,
Thy vengeance is long!
Dark Fury of hell and of death,
The hands of thy kingdom are strong!