women never move! No mortal home to them gave birth! Their giant-bodies tower above, High o'er the puny sons of earth. With loins in mantle black concealed, Within their fleshless bands they wield The torch, that with a dull red glows,—    While in their cheek no life-blood flows; And where the hair is floating wide And loving, round a mortal brow, Here snakes and adders are descried, Whose bellies swell with poison now. And, standing in a fearful ring, The dread and solemn chant they sing, That through the bosom thrilling goes, And round the sinner fetters throws. Sense-robbing, of heart-maddening power, The furies' strains resound through air The listener's marrow they devour,—     The lyre can yield such numbers ne'er.     "Happy the man who, blemish-free, Preserves a soul of purity! Near him we ne'er avenging come, He freely o'er life's path may roam. But woe to him who, hid from view, Hath done the deed of murder base! Upon his heels we close pursue,—     We, who belong to night's dark race!"  

   

   

     "And if he thinks to 'scape by flight, Winged we appear, our snare of might Around his flying feet to cast, So that he needs must fall at last. Thus we pursue him, tiring ne'er,—     Our wrath repentance cannot quell,—    On to the shadows, and e'en there We leave him not in peace to dwell!"     Thus singing, they the dance resume, And silence, like that of the tomb, O'er the whole house lies heavily, As if the deity were nigh. And staid and solemn, as of old, Circling the theatre's wide round, With footsteps measured and controlled, They vanish in the far background. Between deceit and truth each breast. Now doubting hangs, by awe possessed, And homage pays to that dread might, That judges what is hid from sight,—    That, fathomless, inscrutable, The gloomy skein of fate entwines, That reads the bosom's depths full well, Yet flies away where sunlight shines. When sudden, from the tier most high, A voice is heard by all to cry:    "See there, see there, Timotheus! Behold the cranes of Ibycus!"    The heavens become as black as night, And o'er the theatre they see, Far over-head, a dusky flight Of cranes, approaching hastily.     "Of Ibycus!"—That name so blest With new-born sorrow fills each breast. As waves on waves in ocean rise, From mouth to mouth it swiftly flies:    "Of Ibycus, whom we lament? Who fell beneath the murderer's hand? What mean those words that from him went? What means this cranes' advancing 

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