Racine: Phaedra

68
SOPHOCLES
Shall lull to sleep of death
In them our God is great,
In them He grows not old for evermore.
Antistrophe I.
But pride begets the mood
Of wanton, tyrant power;
Pride filled with many thoughts, yet filled in vain,
Untimely, ill-advised,
Scaling the topmost height.
Falls to the abyss of woe.
Where step that profiteth
It seeks in vain to take.
I ask our God to stay
The labors never more
That work our country's good
I will not cease to call on God for aid.
Strophe II.
But if there be who walketh haughtily,
In action or in speech.
Whom Righteousness herself has ceased to awe.
Who shrines of Gods reveres not,.
An evil fate be his,
(Fit meed for all his evil boastfulness ;)
Unless he gain his gains more righteously,
And draweth back from deeds of sacrilege.
Nor lays rash hand upon the holy things.
By man inviolable
Who now, if such things be,
Will boast that he can guard
His soul from darts of wrath ?
If deeds like these are held in high repute.
What profit is't for me
To raise my choral strain?
Antistrophe II.
No longer will I go in pilgrim's guise.
To yon all holy place.