THE LAY OF CHRYSOSTOM Since thou dost in thy cruelty desire The ruthless rigour of thy tyranny From tongue to tongue, from land to land proclaimed, The very Hell will I constrain to lend This stricken breast of mine deep notes of woe To serve my need of fitting utterance.
And as I strive to body forth the tale Of all I suffer, all that thou hast done, Forth shall the dread voice roll, and bear along Shreds from my vitals torn for greater pain.
Then listen, not to dulcet harmony, But to a discord wrung by mad despair Out of this bosom’s depths of bitterness, To ease my heart and plant a sting in thine.
The lion’s roar, the fierce wolf’s savage howl, The horrid hissing of the scaly snake, The awesome cries of monsters yet unnamed, The crow’s ill-boding croak, the hollow moan Of wild winds wrestling with the restless sea, The wrathful bellow of the vanquished bull, The plaintive sobbing of the widowed dove, The envied owl’s sad note, the wail of woe That rises from the dreary choir of Hell, Commingled in one sound, confusing sense, Let all these come to aid my soul’s complaint, For pain like mine demands new modes of song.
No echoes of that discord shall be heard Where Father Tagus rolls, or on the banks Of olive-bordered Betis; to the rocks Or in deep caverns shall my plaint be told, And by a lifeless tongue in living words; Or in dark valleys or on lonely shores, Where neither foot of man nor sunbeam falls; Or in among the poison-breathing swarms Of monsters nourished by the sluggish Nile.
For, though it be to solitudes remote The hoarse vague echoes of my sorrows sound Thy matchless cruelty, my dismal fate Shall carry them