That sight some God keep from me though I die.
A God from thee shall keep it; fear not this.
Thanks all my life long shall he gain of mine.
Short gain of all yet shall he get of thee.
Brief be my life, yet so long live my thanks.
So long? so little; how long shall they live?
Even while I see the sunlight and thine eyes.
Would mine might shut ere thine upon the sun. 410
For me thou prayest unkindly; change that prayer.
Not well for me thou sayest, and ill for thee.
Nay, for me well, if thou shalt live, not I.
How live, and lose these loving looks of thine?
It seems I too, thus praying, then, love thee not.
Lov'st thou not life? what wouldst thou do to die?
Well, but not more than all things, love I life.
And fain wouldst keep it as thine age allows?
Fain would I live, and fain not fear to die.
That I might bid thee die not! Peace; no more. 420
A godlike race of grief the Gods have set For these to run matched equal, heart with heart.
Child of the chief of Gods, and maiden crowned, Queen of these towers and fostress of their king, Pallas, and thou my father's holiest head, A living well of life nor stanched nor stained, O God Cephisus, thee too charge I next, Be to me judge and witness; nor thine ear Shall now my tongue invoke not, thou to me Most hateful of things holy, mournfullest 430 Of all old sacred streams that wash the world, Ilissus, on whose marge at flowery play A whirlwind-footed bridegroom found my child And rapt her northward where mine elder-born Keeps now the Thracian bride-bed of a God Intolerable to seamen, but this land Finds him in hope for her sake favourable, A gracious son by wedlock; hear me then Thou likewise, if with no faint heart or false The word I say be said, the gift be given, 440 Which might I choose I had rather die than give Or speak and die not.