Names are there, Nature's sacred watchwords: they
Were borne aloft in bright emblazonry ;

The nations thronged around, and cried aloud,
As with one voice, "Truth, Liberty, and Love!"
Suddenly fierce confusion fell from heaven
Among them there was strife, deceit, and fear:
Tyrants rushed in, and did divide the spoil.

This was the shadow of the truth I saw.

The Earth. I felt thy torture, son, with such mixed joy As pain and virtue give. To cheer thy state,

I bid ascend those subtle

and fair Spirits

Whose homes are the dim caves of human thought,
And who inhabit, as birds wing the wind,
Its world-surrounding ether. They behold
Beyond that twilight realm, as in a glass,

The future may they speak comfort to thee!

Panthea. Look, sister, where a troop of Spirits gather,
Like flocks of clouds in Spring's delightful weather
Thronging in the blue air!

Ione.

And see more come,

Like fountain-vapours when the winds are dumb,
That climb up the ravine in scattered lines.

And hark! is it the music of the pines?

Is it the lake? is it the waterfall?

Panthea. 'Tis something sadder, sweeter, far than all.

CHORUS OF SPIRITS OF the Mind.

From unremembered ages we
Gentle guides and guardians be
Of Heaven-oppressed Mortality.
And we breathe, and sicken not,
The atmosphere of human thought:
Be it dim and dank and grey,
Like a storm-extinguished day
Travelled o'er by dying gleams;
Be it bright as all between
Cloudless skies and windless streams,
Silent, liquid, and serene.
As the birds within the wind,
As the fish within the wave,

As the thoughts of man's own mind
Float through all above the grave:

We make there our liquid lair,
Voyaging cloudlike and unpent
Through the boundless element.
Thence we bear the prophecy

Which begins and ends in thee!

Ione. More yet come, one by one: the air around them Looks radiant as the air around a star.

FIRST SPIRIT.

On a battle-trumpet's blast

I fled hither, fast, fast, fast,

'Mid the darkness upward cast.
From the dust of creeds outworn,
From the tyrant's banner torn,
Gathering round me, onward borne,
There was mingled many a cry—
"Freedom! Hope! Death! Victory!"
Till they faded through the sky.
And one sound, above, around,
One sound, beneath, around, above,
Was moving; 'twas the soul of Love;
'Twas the hope, the prophecy,
Which begins and ends in thee.

SECOND SPIRIT.

A rainbow's arch stood on the sea
Which rocked beneath, immovably;
And the triumphant storm did flee
(Like a conqueror, swift and proud)
Between, -with many a captive cloud,
A shapeless, dark, and rapid crowd,
Each by lightning riven in half.
I heard the thunder hoarsely laugh:
Mighty fleets were strewn like chaff,
And spread beneath, a hell of death,
O'er the white waters. I alit
On a great ship lightning-split;
And speeded hither on the sigh
Of one who gave an enemy

His plank, then plunged aside to die.
THIRD SPIRIT.

I sate beside a sage's bed,

And the lamp was burning red
Near the book where he had fed;
When a Dream with plumes of flame
To his pillow hovering came.
And I knew it was the same
Which had kindled long ago
Pity, eloquence, and woe;
And the world awhile below
Wore the shade its lustre made.
It has borne me here as fleet
As Desire's lightning feet:
I must ride it back ere morrow,
Or the sage will wake in sorrow,

FOURTH SPIRIT.

On a poet's lips I slept,

Dreaming like a love-adept

In the sound his breathing kept.

Nor seeks nor finds he mortal blisses,

But feeds on the aërial kisses

Of shapes that haunt thought's wildernesses.

He will watch from dawn to gloom

The lake-reflected sun illume
The yellow bees in the ivy-bloom,
Nor heed nor see what things they be
But from these create he can

Forms more real than living man,
Nurslings of immortality.
One of these awakened me,

And I sped to succour thee.

Ione. Behold'st thou not two shapes from the east and west
Come? as two doves to one beloved nest,

Twin nurslings of the all-sustaining air,

On swift still wings glide down the atmosphere.
And hark! their sweet sad voices ! 'tis despair
Mingled with love, and then dissolved in sound.

Panthea. Canst thou speak, sister? all my words are drowned.
Ione. Their beauty gives me voice. See how they float
On their sustaining wings of skiey grain,

Orange and azure deepening into gold:

Their soft smiles light the air like a star's fire.

CHORUS OF SPIRITS.

Hast thou beheld the form of Love?

FIFTH SPIRIT.

As over wide dominions

I sped, like some swift cloud that wings the wide air's wilder

nesses,

That planet-crested shape swept by on lightning-braided pinions,
Scattering the liquid joy of life from his ambrosial tresses :
His footsteps paved the world with light. But, as I passed, 'twas

fading,

And hollow ruin yawned behind: great sages bound in madness, And headless patriots, and pale youths who perished unupbraiding, Gleamed in the night. I wandered o'er, till thou, O King of

Sadness,

Turn'st by thy smile the worst I saw to recollected gladness.

SIXTH SPIRIT.

Ah Sister! Desolation is a delicate thing:

It walks not on the earth, it floats not on the air,

But treads with killing footstep, and fans with silent wing, The tender hopes which in their hearts the best and gentlest bear; Who, soothed to false repose by the fanning plumes above, And the music-stirring motion of its soft and busy feet,

Dream visions of aërial joy, and call the monster Love,
And wake, and find the shadow Pain, as he whom now we greet.
CHORUS.

Though Ruin now Love's shadow be
Following him destroyingly

On Death's white and wingèd steed

Which the fleetest cannot flee,

Trampling down both flower and weed,

Man and beast, and foul and fair,

Like a tempest through the air;

Thou shalt quell this horseman grim,
Woundless though in heart or limb.
PROMETHEUS.

Spirits! how know ye this shall be?

CHORUS.

In the atmosphere we breathe,

(As buds grow red when the snow-storms flee
From Spring gathering up beneath,
Whose mild winds shake the elder-brake,
And the wandering herdsmen know
That the white-thorn soon will blow)
Wisdom, Justice, Love, and Peace,
When they struggle to increase,
Are to us as soft winds be

To shepherd boys, the prophecy
Which begins and ends in thee.
Ione. Where are the Spirits fled?
Panthea.
Only a sense
Remains of them; like the omnipotence
Of music when the inspired voice and lute
Languish, ere yet the responses are mute

Which through the deep and labyrinthine soul,
Like echoes through long caverns, wind and roll.

Prometheus. How fair these air-born shapes! And yet I feel
Most vain all hope but love! And thou art far,

Asia! who, when my being overflowed,
Wert like a golden chalice to bright wine
Which else had sunk into the thirsty dust.
All things are still. Alas! how heavily
This quiet morning weighs upon my heart!

Though I should dream I could even sleep with grief,

If slumber were denied not. I would fain

Be what it is my destiny to be,

The saviour and the strength of suffering man,
Or sink into the original gulf of things.

There is no agony and no solace left;

Earth can console, Heaven can torment, no more.

Panthea. Hast thou forgotten one who watches thee

The cold dark night, and never sleeps but when

The shadow of thy spirit falls on her?

Prometheus. I said all hope was vain but love: thou lovest. Panthea. Deeply in truth. But the eastern star looks white, And Asia waits in that far Indian vale,

The scene of her sad exile; rugged once

And desolate and frozen, like this ravine;

But now invested with fair flowers and herbs,

And haunted by sweet airs and sounds which flow
Among the woods and waters, from the ether
Of her transforming presence, which would fade
If it were mingled not with thine. Farewell!

ACT. II.

SCENE I.-Morning. A lovely Vale in the Indian Caucasus. ASIA, alone.

Asia. From all the blasts of heaven thou hast descended!

Yes, like a spirit, like a thought which makes

Unwonted tears throng to the horny eyes,

And beatings haunt the desolated heart

Which should have learnt repose, thou hast descended,

Cradled in tempests; thou dost wake, O Spring!

O child of many winds! As suddenly

Thou comest as the memory of a dream

Which now is sad because it hath been sweet ;
Like genius, or like joy, which riseth up

As from the earth, clothing with golden clouds
The desert of our life.-

This is the season, this the day, the hour;

At sunrise thou shouldst come, sweet Sister mine;
Too long desired, too long delaying, come!

How like death-worms the wingless moments crawl!
The point of one white star is quivering still
Deep in the orange light of widening morn
Beyond the purple mountains: through a chasm
Of wind-divided mist the darker lake

Reflects it. Now it wanes: it gleams again

As the waves fade, and as the burning threads

Of woven cloud unravel in pale air.

'Tis lost! and through yon peaks of cloud-like snow The roseate sunlight quivers. Hear I not

The Eolian music of her sea-green plumes

Winnowing the crimson dawn?

I feel, I see,

[PANTHEA enters.

Those eyes which burn through smiles that fade in tears,
Like stars half-quenched in mists of silver dew.

Beloved and most beautiful, who wearest

The shadow of that soul by which I live,

How late thou art! the sphered sun had climbed

The sea; my heart was sick with hope, before

The printless air felt thy belated plumes.

Panthea. Pardon, great Sister! but my wings were faint

With the delight of a remembered dream,

As are the noontide plumes of summer winds

Satiate with sweet flowers. I was wont to sleep
Peacefully, and awake refreshed and calm,
Before the sacred Titan's fall, and thy
Unhappy love, had made, through use and pity,
Both love and woe familiar to my heart,
As they had grown to thine. Erewhile I slept
Under the glaucous caverns of old Ocean
Within dim bowers of green and purple moss, -

P