Whoever she may be, give her the urn;
Her wish approves her not an enemy
But a good friend, perchance one near in blood.

ELECTRA.

Dearest of all memorials to my heart,
Relic of my Orestes, what a change
From those fond hopes with which I sent thee forth!
Full of bright promise wast thou then, and now
I see thee here reduced to nothingness.
Would I myself had died before the hour
When from the murderous hands that sought thy life
I snatched and sent thee to a foreign shore,
So hadst thou met thy end at once and slept
In thy forefather's tomb. Instead whereof
Thou hast died miserably far from home,
An exile, with no sister at thy side.
I was not there with loving hand to wash
Thy corpse, to lay thee out, or gather up,
As nature bade, the relics of the pyre.
Strange hands those rites performed; and thou art here,
A little dust clipt in a narrow urn.
Unhappy me! how bootless were the pains
Which many a day I spent in nursing thee,
A labour that I loved, for thou wert not
Thy mother's darling more than thou wert mine.
No menial hands tended thy infancy,
But I thy sister, joying in that name.