Song of the furies

Up and lead the dance of fate!
Lift the song that mortals hate!
Tell what rights are ours on earth
Over all of human birth
Swift of foot to avenge are we!
He whose hands are clean and pure
Naught our wrath to dread hath he
Calm his cloudless days endure

But the man that seeks to hide
Like him, his gore-bedewèd hands
Witnesses to them that died
The furies' troop forever stands

For light our footsteps are
And perfect is our might
Awful remembrances of guilt and crime
Implacable to mortal prayer

O'er our victim come begin!
Come, the incantation sing
Frantic all and maddening
To the heart a brand of fire
Do you hear the furies' hymn?
That which claims the senses dim
Tuneless to the gentle lyre
Withering the soul within

Pride of all of human birth
Glorious in the eye of day
Dishonored slowly melts away
Trod down, trampled to the earth

Far from the gods, unhonored, and heaven's light
We hold our voiceless dwellings dread
All unapproached by living or by dead

What mortal feels not awe
Nor trembles at our name
Hearing our fate
The eternal law
For old is our fame
Might never yet of its due honors fail
Though 'neath the earth our realm in unsunned regions pale