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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=393380" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>The Cranes Of Ibycus</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">Once to the song and chariot-fight,<br>Where all the tribes of Greece unite<br>On Corinth's isthmus joyously,<br>The god-loved Ibycus drew nigh.<br>On him Apollo had bestowed<br> The gift of song and strains inspired;<br>So, with light staff, he took his road<br> From Rhegium, by the godhead fired.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Acrocorinth, on mountain high,<br>Now burns upon the wanderer's eye,<br>And he begins, with pious dread,<br>Poseidon's grove of firs to tread.<br>Naught moves around him, save a swarm<br> Of cranes, who guide him on his way;<br>Who from far southern regions warm<br> Have hither come in squadron gray.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">&quot;Thou friendly band, all hail to thee!<br>Who led'st me safely o'er the sea!<br>I deem thee as a favoring sign,--<br>My destiny resembles thine.<br>Both come from a far distant coast,<br> Both pray for some kind sheltering place;--<br>Propitious toward us be the host<br> Who from the stranger wards disgrace!&quot;</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And on he hastes, in joyous wood,<br>And reaches soon the middle wood<br>When, on a narrow bridge, by force<br>Two murderers sudden bar his course.<br>He must prepare him for the fray,<br> But soon his wearied hand sinks low;<br>Inured the gentle lyre to play,<br> It ne'er has strung the deadly bow.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">On gods and men for aid he cries,--<br>No savior to his prayer replies;<br>However far his voice he sends,<br>Naught living to his cry attends.<br>&quot;And must I in a foreign land,<br> Unwept, deserted, perish here,<br>Falling beneath a murderous hand,<br> Where no avenger can appear?&quot;</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Deep-wounded, down he sinks at last,<br>When, lo! the cranes' wings rustle past.<br>He hears,--though he no more can see,--<br>Their voices screaming fearfully.<br>&quot;By you, ye cranes, that soar on high,<br> If not another voice is heard,<br>Be borne to heaven my murder-cry!&quot;<br> He speaks, and dies, too, with the word.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">The naked corpse, ere long, is found,<br>And, though defaced by many a wound,<br>His host in Corinth soon could tell<br>The features that he loved so well.<br>&quot;And is it thus I find thee now,<br> Who hoped the pine's victorious crown<br>To place upon the singer's brow,<br> Illumined by his bright renown?&quot;</div><div style="margin:10px 0">The news is heard with grief by all<br>Met at Poseidon's festival;<br>All Greece is conscious of the smart,<br>He leaves a void in every heart;<br>And to the Prytanis [33] swift hie<br> The people, and they urge him on<br>The dead man's manes to pacify<br> And with the murderer's blood atone.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">But where's the trace that from the throng<br>The people's streaming crowds among,<br>Allured there by the sports so bright,<br>Can bring the villain back to light?<br>By craven robbers was he slain?<br> Or by some envious hidden foe?<br>That Helios only can explain,<br> Whose rays illume all things below.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Perchance, with shameless step and proud,<br>He threads e'en now the Grecian crowd--<br>Whilst vengeance follows in pursuit,<br>Gloats over his transgression's fruit.<br>The very gods perchance he braves<br> Upon the threshold of their fane,--<br>Joins boldly in the human waves<br> That haste yon theatre to gain.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">For there the Grecian tribes appear,<br>Fast pouring in from far and near;<br>On close-packed benches sit they there,--<br>The stage the weight can scarcely bear.<br>Like ocean-billows' hollow roar,<br> The teaming crowds of living man<br>Toward the cerulean heavens upsoar,<br> In bow of ever-widening span.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Who knows the nation, who the name,<br>Of all who there together came?<br>From Theseus' town, from Aulis' strand<br>From Phocis, from the Spartan land,<br>From Asia's distant coast, they wend,<br> From every island of the sea,<br>And from the stage they hear ascend<br> The chorus's dread melody.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Who, sad and solemn, as of old,<br>With footsteps measured and controlled,<br>Advancing from the far background,<br>Circle the theatre's wide round.<br>Thus, mortal women never move!<br> No mortal home to them gave birth!<br>Their giant-bodies tower above,<br> High o'er the puny sons of earth.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">With loins in mantle black concealed,<br>Within their fleshless bands they wield<br>The torch, that with a dull red glows,--<br>While in their cheek no life-blood flows;<br>And where the hair is floating wide<br> And loving, round a mortal brow,<br>Here snakes and adders are descried,<br> Whose bellies swell with poison now.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And, standing in a fearful ring,<br>The dread and solemn chant they sing,<br>That through the bosom thrilling goes,<br>And round the sinner fetters throws.<br>Sense-robbing, of heart-maddening power,<br> The furies' strains resound through air<br>The listener's marrow they devour,--<br> The lyre can yield such numbers ne'er.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">&quot;Happy the man who, blemish-free,<br>Preserves a soul of purity!<br>Near him we ne'er avenging come,<br>He freely o'er life's path may roam.<br>But woe to him who, hid from view,<br> Hath done the deed of murder base!<br>Upon his heels we close pursue,--<br> We, who belong to night's dark race!&quot;</div><div style="margin:10px 0">&quot;And if he thinks to 'scape by flight,<br>Winged we appear, our snare of might<br>Around his flying feet to cast,<br>So that he needs must fall at last.<br>Thus we pursue him, tiring ne'er,--<br> Our wrath repentance cannot quell,--<br>On to the shadows, and e'en there<br> We leave him not in peace to dwell!&quot;</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Thus singing, they the dance resume,<br>And silence, like that of the tomb,<br>O'er the whole house lies heavily,<br>As if the deity were nigh.<br>And staid and solemn, as of old,<br> Circling the theatre's wide round,<br>With footsteps measured and controlled,<br> They vanish in the far background.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Between deceit and truth each breast.<br>Now doubting hangs, by awe possessed,<br>And homage pays to that dread might,<br>That judges what is hid from sight,--<br>That, fathomless, inscrutable,<br> The gloomy skein of fate entwines,<br>That reads the bosom's depths full well,<br> Yet flies away where sunlight shines.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">When sudden, from the tier most high,<br>A voice is heard by all to cry:<br>&quot;See there, see there, Timotheus!<br>Behold the cranes of Ibycus!&quot;<br>The heavens become as black as night,<br> And o'er the theatre they see,<br>Far over-head, a dusky flight<br> Of cranes, approaching hastily.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">&quot;Of Ibycus!&quot;--That name so blest<br>With new-born sorrow fills each breast.<br>As waves on waves in ocean rise,<br>From mouth to mouth it swiftly flies:<br>&quot;Of Ibycus, whom we lament?<br> Who fell beneath the murderer's hand?<br>What mean those words that from him went?<br> What means this cranes' advancing band?&quot;</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And louder still become the cries,<br>And soon this thought foreboding flies<br>Through every heart, with speed of light--<br>&quot;Observe in this the furies' might!<br>The poets manes are now appeased<br> The murderer seeks his own arrest!<br>Let him who spoke the word be seized,<br> And him to whom it was addressed!&quot;</div><div style="margin:10px 0">That word he had no sooner spoke,<br>Than he its sound would fain invoke;<br>In vain! his mouth, with terror pale,<br>Tells of his guilt the fearful tale.<br>Before the judge they drag them now<br> The scene becomes the tribunal;<br>Their crimes the villains both avow,<br> When neath the vengeance-stroke they fall.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=Friedrich+Schiller">Friedrich Schiller</a><div class=q>
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Where all the tribes of Greece unite
On Corinth's isthmus joyously,
The god-loved Ibycus drew nigh.
On him Apollo had bestowed
 The gift of song and strains inspired;
So, with light staff, he took his road
 From..."></div>
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