Which severs life from death, unscathed by woe.”—Plumptre.
Œdipus ended his days in exile at Colonus, where he was received by Theseus, the hero of Attica, and attended to the last by his faithful daughter Antigone. His death is the subject of the play “Œdipus at Colonus,” written at the close of the poet’s life and reflecting the gentleness and serenity of his last days. It contains one of the gems of Sophocles—that chorus which has immortalized the lovely scenery about Colonus—which the old poet recited before the Athenian judges to prove his sanity. Bulwer furnishes us a spirited version of this famous passage:—The chorus informs the outcast Œdipus that he has come to Colonus,
“Where ever and aye, through the greenest vale,
Gush the wailing notes of the nightingale,
From her home where the dark-hued ivy weaves
With the grove of the god a night of leaves;
And the vines blossom out from the lonely glade,
And the suns of the summer are dim in the shade,
And the storms of the winter have never a breeze,
That can shiver a leaf from the charmèd trees;