Give yourself no unnecessary pain,

My dear Lord Cardinal. Here, mother, tie
My girdle for me, and bind up this hair

Though wrapt in a strange cloud of crime and In any simple knot; ay, that does well.

PREFACE.

sary. The only imaginary being resembling in any degree Prometheus, is Satan; and Prometheus is, in my judgment, a more poetical character than Satan THE Greek tragic writers, in selecting as their subject because, in addition to courage, and majesty, and firm any portion of their national history or mythology, and patient opposition to omnipotent force, he is susemployed in their treatment of it a certain arbitrary ceptible of being described as exempt from the taints discretion. They by no means conceived themselves of ambition, envy, revenge, and a desire for personal bound to adhere to the common interpretation, or to aggrandizement, which, in the Hero of Paradise Lost, imitate in story as in title their rivals and predeces-interfere with the interest. The character of Satan sors. Such a system would have amounted to a engenders in the mind a pernicious casuistry, which resignation of those claims to preference over their leads us to weigh his faults with his wrongs, and to competitors which incited the composition. The Agamemnonian story was exhibited on the Athenian theatre with as many variations as dramas.

excuse the former because the latter exceed all measure. In the minds of those who consider that magnificent fiction with a religious feeling, it engenders I have presumed to employ a similar license. The something worse. But Prometheus is, as it were, "Prometheus Unbound" of Eschylus supposed the the type of the highest perfection of moral and intelreconciliation of Jupiter with his victim as the price lectual nature, impelled by the purest and the truest of the disclosure of the danger threatened to his motives to the best and noblest ends. empire by the consummation of his marriage withi This Poem was chiefly written upon the mountain Thetis. Thetis, according to this view of the subject, ous ruins of the Baths of Caracalla, among the was given in marriage to Peleus, and Prometheus, flowery glades, and thickets of odoriferous blossomby the permission of Jupiter, delivered frem his cap-ing trees, which are extended in ever-winding labytivity by Hercules. Had I framed my story on this rinths upon its immense platforms and dizzy arches model, I should have done no more than have at- suspended in the air. The bright blue sky of Rome, tempted to restore the lost drama of Æschylus; an and the effect of the vigorous awakening spring in ambition, which, if my preference to this mode of that divinest climate, and the new life with which it treating the subject had incited me to cherish, the drenches the spirits even to intoxication, were the recollection of the high comparison such an attempt inspiration of this drama. would challenge might well abate. But, in truth, I The imagery which I have employed will be was averse from a catastrophe so feeble as that of found, in many instances, to have been drawn from reconciling the Champion with the Oppressor of man- the operations of the human mind, or from those exkind. The moral interest of the fable, which is so ternal actions by which they are expressed. This is powerfully sustained by the sufferings and endurance unusual in modern poetry, although Dante and Shakof Prometheus, would be annihilated if we could speare are full of instances of the same kind: Dante conceive of him as unsaying his high language and indeed more than any other poet, and with greater quailing before his successful and perfidious adver-success. But the Greek poets, as writers to whom no

I

resource of awakening the sympathy of their con- the mirror of all that is lovely in the visible universe, temporaries was unknown, were in the habitual use as exclude from his contemplation the beautiful which of this power; and it is the study of their works exists in the writings of a great contemporary. The (since a higher merit would probably be denied me), pretence of doing it would be a presumption in any to which I am willing that my readers should impute but the greatest; the effect, even in him, would be this singularity. strained, unnatural, and ineffectual. A poet is the One word is due in candor to the degree in which combined product of such internal powers as modify the study of contemporary writings may have tinged the nature of others; and of such external influences my composition, for such has been a topic of censure as excite and sustain these powers; he is not one, with regard to poems far more popular, and indeed but both. Every man's mind is, in this respect, more deservedly popular, than mine. It is impossible modified by all the objects of nature and art; by that any one who inhabits the same age with such every word and every suggestion which he ever adwriters as those who stand in the foremost ranks of mitted to act upon his consciousness; it is the mirror our own, can conscientiously assure himself that his upon which all forms are reflected, and in which language and tone of thought may not have been they compose one form. Poets, not otherwise than modified by the study of the productions of those ex- philosophers, painters, sculptors, and musicians, are. traordinary intellects. It is true, that, not the spirit in one sense, the creators, and in another, the creof their genius, but the forms in which it has mani-ations, of their age. From this subjection the loftiest fested itself, are due less to the peculiarities of their do not escape. There is a similarity between Homer own minds than to the peculiarity of the moral and and Hesiod, between Eschylus and Euripides, beintellectual condition of the minds among which they tween Virgil and Horace, between Dante and Pehave been produced. Thus a number of writers trarch, between Shakspeare and Fletcher, between possess the form, whilst they want the spirit of those Dryden and Pope; each has a generic resemblance whom, it is alleged, they imitate; because the former under which their specific distinctions are arranged. is the endowment of the age in which they live, and If this similarity be the result of imitation, I am willthe latter must be the uncommunicated lightning of ing to confess that I have imitated. their own mind. Let this opportunity be conceded to me of acThe peculiar style of intense and comprehensive knowledging that I have, what a Scotch philosopher imagery which distinguishes the modern literature characteristically terms, " a passion for reforming the of England, has not been, as a general power, the world" what passion incited him to write and pubproduct of the imitation of any particular writer. lish his book, he omits to explain. For my part, The mass of capabilities remains at every period had rather be damned with Plato and Lord Bacon, materially the same; the circumstances which awaken than go to Heaven with Paley and Malthus. But it it to action perpetually change. If England were is a mistake to suppose that I dedicate my poetical divided into forty republics, each equal in population compositions solely to the direct enforcement of reand extent to Athens, there is no reason to suppose form, or that I consider them in any degree as conbut that, under institutions not more perfect than taining a reasoned system on the theory of human those of Athens, each would produce philosophers life. Didactic poetry is my abhorrence; nothing can and poets equal to those who (if we except Shak-be equally well expressed in prose that is not tedious speare) have never been surpassed. We owe the and supererogatory in verse. My purpose has hitherto great writers of the golden age of our literature to been simply to familiarize the highly refined imagi that fervid awakening of the public mind which nation of the more select classes of poetical readers shook to dust the oldest and most oppressive form of with beautiful idealisms of moral excellence; aware the Christian religion. We owe Milton to the pro- that until the mind can love, and admire, and trust, gress and development of the same spirit: the sacred and hope, and endure, reasoned principles of moral Milton was, let it ever be remembered, a republican, conduct are seeds cast upon the highway of life, and a bold inquirer into morals and religion. The which the unconscious passenger tramples into dust, great writers of our own age are, we have reason although they would bear the harvest of his happi10 suppose, the companions and forerunners of some ness. Should I live to accomplish what I purpose, unimagined change in our social condition or the that is, produce a systematical history of what ap opinions which cement it. The cloud of mind is pear to me to be the genuine elements of human sodischarging its collected lightning, and the equilib-ciety, let not the advocates of injustice and superrium between institutions and opinions is now re- stition flatter themselves that I should take Æschylus storing, or is about to be restored. rather than Plato as my model. As to imitation, poetry is a mimetic art. It creates, The having spoken of myself with unaffected free. but it creates by combination and representation. dom will need little apology with the candid; and Poetical abstractions are beautiful and new, not be- let the uncandid consider that they injure me less cause the portions of which they are composed had than their own hearts and minds by misrepresentano previous existence in the mind of man or in nature, tion. Whatever talents a person may possess to but because the whole produced by their combination amuse and instruct others, be they ever so inconsider has some intelligible and beautiful analogy with those able, he is yet bound to exert them: if his attempt sources of emotion and thought, and with the con- be ineffectual, let the punishment of an unaccom temporary condition of them: one great poet is a plished purpose have been sufficient; let none trouble masterpiece of nature, which another not only ought themselves to heap the dust of oblivion upon his to study but must study. He might as wisely and as efforts; the pile they raise will betray his grave. easily determine that his mind should no longer be which might otherwise have been unknown.

DRAMATIS PERSONA.

Eat with their burning cold into my bones.

MONARCH of Gods and Demons, and all Spirits
But One, who throng those bright and rolling worlds
Which Thou and I alone of living things
Behold with sleepless eyes! regard this Earth,
Made multitudinous with thy slaves, whom thou
Requitest for knee-worship, prayer, and praise,
And toil, and hecatombs of broken hearts,
With fear and self-contempt and barren hope.
Whilst me, who am thy foe, eyeless in hate,
Hast thou made reign and triumph, to thy scorn,
O'er mine own misery and thy vain revenge.
Three thousand years of sleep-unshelter'd hours,
And moments aye divided by keen pangs
Till they seem'd years, torture and solitude,
Scorn and despair,-these are mine empire,
More glorious far than that which thou surveyest
From thine unenvied throne, O, Mighty God!
Almighty, had I deign'd to share the shame
Of thine ill tyranny, and hung not here
Nail'd to this wall of eagle-baffling mountain,
Black, wintry, dead, unmeasured; without herb,
Insect, or beast, or shape or sound of life.
Ah me, alas! pain, pain ever, for ever!

No change, no pause, no hope! Yet I endure.
I ask the Earth, have not the mountains felt?
I ask yon Heaven, the all-beholding Sun,
Has it not seen? The Sea, in storm or calm,
Heaven's ever-changing Shadow, spread below,
Have its deaf waves not heard my agony?
Ah me! alas, pain, pain ever, for ever!

The crawling glaciers pierce me with the spears
Of their moon-freezing crystals; the bright chains

Heaven's winged hound, polluting from thy lips
His beak in poison not his own, tears up

My heart; and shapeless sights come wandering by,
The ghastly people of the realm of dream,
Mocking me: and the Earthquake-fiends are charged
To wrench the rivets from my quivering wounds
When the rocks split and close again behind:
While from their loud abysses howling throng
The genii of the storm, urging the rage
Of whirlwind, and afflict me with keen hail.
And yet to me welcome is day and night,
Whether one breaks the hoar frost of the morn,
Or starry, dim, and slow, the other climbs
The leaden-color'd east; for then they lead
The wingless, crawling hours, one among whom
-As some dark Priest hales the reluctant victim-
Shall drag thee, cruel King, to kiss the blood
From these pale feet, which then might trample thee
If they disdain'd not such a prostrate slave.
Disdain! Ah no! I pity thee. What ruin
Will hunt thee undefended through the wide Heaven!
How will thy soul, cloven to its depth with terror,
Gape like a hell within! I speak in grief,
Not exultation, for I hate no more

As then, ere misery made me wise. The curse
Once breathed on thee I would recall. Ye Mountains
Whose many-voiced Echoes, through the mist
Of cataracts, flung the thunder of that spell!

Ye icy Springs, stagnant with wrinkling frost,

Which vibrated to hear me, and then crept

Shuddering through India! Thou serenest Air,
Through which the Sun walks burning without beams!
And ye swift Whirlwinds, who on poised wings
Hung mute and moveless o'er yon hush'd abyss,
As thunder, louder than your own, made rock
The orbed world! If then my words had power,
Though I am changed so that aught evil wish
Is dead within; although no memory be
Of what is hate, let them not lose it now!
What was that curse? for ye all heard me speak.

FIRST VOICE: FROM THE MOUNTAINS.

Thrice three hundred thousand years
O'er the Earthquake's couch we stood:
Oft, as men convulsed with fears,
We trembled in our multitude.

SECOND VOICE: FROM THE SPRINGS.

Thunderbolts had parch'd our water,

We had been stain'd with bitter blood, And had run mute, 'mid shrieks of slaughter, Through a city and a solitude.

THIRD VOICE: FROM THE AIR.

I had clothed, since Earth uprose,
Its wastes in colors not their own;
And oft had my serene repose

Been cloven by many a rending groan.

FOURTH VOICE: FROM THE WHIRLWINDS.
We had soar'd beneath these mountains

Unresting ages; nor had thunder,
Nor yon volcano's flaming fountains,
Nor any power above or under
Ever made us mute with wonder.
327

The sound is of whirlwind underground,
Earthquake, and fire, and mountains cloven;
The shape is awful like the sound,

Clothed in dark purple, star-inwoven.
A sceptre of pale gold

To stay steps proud, o'er the slow cloud
His veined hand doth hold.

Cruel he looks, but calm and strong,
Like one who does, not suffers wrong.

Gray mountains, and old woods, and haunted springs,
Prophetic caves, and isle-surrounding streams,
Rejoice to hear what yet ye cannot speak.

A spirit seizes me and speaks within:
It tears me as fire tears a thunder-cloud.

See, how he lifts his mighty looks, the Heaven
Darkens above.

I see the curse on gestures proud and cold,
And looks of firm defiance, and calm hate,
And such despair as mocks itself with smiles,
Written as on a scroll: yet speak: Oh, speak!