Like a broadened moon,
It passes in sheen, Asopus green, [24]
And bursts on Cithaeron gray.
The warder wakes to the signal rays,
And it swoops from the hill with a broader blaze,
On--on the fiery glory rode--
Thy lonely lake, Gorgopis, glowed--
To Megara's Mount it came;
They feed it again,
And it streams amain
A giant beard of flame!
The headland cliffs that darkly down
O'er the Saronic waters frown,
Are pass'd with the swift one's lurid stride,
And the huge rock glares on the glaring tide,
With mightier march and fiercer power
It gain'd Arachne's neighbouring tower--
Thence on our Argive roof its rest it won,
Of Ida's fire the long-descended son
Bright harbinger of glory and of joy!
So first and last with equal honour crown'd,
In solemn feasts the race-torch circles round.
And these my heralds! this my SIGN OF PEACE!
Lo! while we breathe, the victor lords of Greece,
Stalk, in stern tumult, through the halls of Troy!" [25]

In one of the earlier choruses, in which is introduced an episodical
allusion to the abduction of Helen, occurs one of those soft passages
so rare in Aeschylus, nor less exquisite than rare. The chorus
suppose the minstrels of Menelaus thus to lament the loss of Helen:--