The reins stiff ahind his shoulder madly pulled for the mastery,
Till a thunder off the tense chords thro' his ears dinned horrible.
Panic seized him: fled his vision of inviolability;
Fled the dream that he of mortals rode mischances predominant;
And he cried, 'Had I petitioned for a cup of chill aconite,
My descent to awful Hades had been soft, for now must I go
With the curse by father Zeus cast on ambition immoderate.
Oh, my sisters! Thou, my Goddess, in whose love I was enviable,
From whose arms I rushed befrenzied, what a wreck will this body be,
That admired of thee stood rose-warm in the courts where thy
mysteries
Celebration had from me, me the most splendidly privileged!
Never more shall I thy temple fill with incenses bewildering;
Not again hear thy half-murmurs--I am lost!--never, never more.
I am wrecked on seas of air, hurled to my death in a vessel of
flame!
Hither, sisters! Father, save me! Hither, succour me, Cypria!'

Now a wail of men to Zeus rang: from Olympus the Thunderer
Saw the rage of the havoc wide-mouthed, the bright car
superimpending
Over Asia, Africa, low down; ruin flaming over the vales;
Light disastrous rising savage out of smoke inveterately;
Beast-black, conflagration like a menacing shadow move
With voracious roaring southward, where aslant, insufferable,
The bright steeds careered their parched way down an arc of the
firmament.
For the day grew like to thick night, and the orb was its beacon-
fire,
And from hill to hill of darkness burst the day's apparition forth.