THE EARTH. They were thine. PROMETHEUS. It doth repent me: words are quick and vain: THE EARTH. Misery, Oh misery to me, That Jove at length should vanquish thee. Your refuge, your defence lies fallen and vanquished. FIRST ECHO. Lies fallen and vanquished! SECOND ECHO. Fallen and vanquished! IONE. Fear not 'tis but some passing spasm, But see, where through the azure chasm With golden-sandall'd feet, that glow Stretching on high from his right hand A serpent-cinctured wand. PANTHEA. 'Tis Jove's world-wandering herald, Mercury. IONE. And who are those with hydra tresses And iron wings that climb the wind, Whom the frowning God represses Like vapors steaming up behind, Clanging loud, an endless crowd PANTHEA. To thee unwilling, most unwillingly PROMETHEUS. Evil minds Change good to their own nature. I gave all He has; and in return he chains me here Years, ages, night and day: whether the Sun Split my parch'd skin, or in the moony night The crystal-winged snow cling round my hair: Whilst my beloved race is trampled down By his thought-executing ministers. Such is the tyrant's recompense: 'tis just: He who is evil can receive no good; And for a world bestow'd, or a friend lost, He can feel hate, fear, shame; not gratitude: He but requites me for his own misdeed. Kindness to such is keen reproach, which breaks With bitter stings the light sleep of Revenge. Submission, thou dost know I cannot try: For what submission but that fatal word, The death-seal of mankind's captivity, Like the Sicilian's hair-suspended sword, Which trembles o'er his crown, would he accept, and plunge Into Eternity, where recorded time, Even all that we imagine, age on age, Seems but a point, and the reluctant mind Flags wearily in its unending flight, Till it sink, dizzy, blind, lost, shelterless; Perchance it has not number'd the slow years Which thou must spend in torture, unreprieved? PROMETHEUS. THIRD FURY. Champion of Heaven's slaves! PROMETHEUS. He whom some dreadful voice invokes is here, FIRST FURY. We are the ministers of pain and fear, PROMETHEUS. Oh! many fearful natures in one name, SECOND FURY. We knew not that: Sisters, rejoice, rejoice! PROMETHEUS. Can aught exult in its deformity? SECOND FURY. The beauty of delight makes lovers glad, As from the rose which the pale priestess kneels Perchance no thought can count them, yet they pass. To gather for her festal crown of flowers MERCURY. If thou might'st dwell among the Gods the while, Lapp'd in voluptuous joy? PROMETHEUS. I would not quit This bleak ravine, these unrepentant pains. MERCURY. Alas! I wonder at, yet pity thee. PROMETHEUS. Pity the self-despising slaves of Heaven, Not me, within whose mind sits peace serene, As light in the sun, throned: how vain is talk! Call up the fiends. IONE. O, sister, look! White fire Has cloven to the roots yon huge snow-loaded cedar; How fearfully God's thunder howls behind! MERCURY. I must obey his words and thine: alas! Most heavily remorse hangs at my heart! PANTHEA. See where the child of Heaven, with winged feet, Runs down the slanted sunlight of the dawn. IONE. Dear sister, close thy plumes over thine eyes, FIRST FURY. Prometheus! SECOND FURY. Immortal Titan! earth, Shine on a misery to be borne. Where the night has its grave and the morning its Dost thou faint, mighty Titan? We laugh thee to scorn. birth, Dost thou boast the clear knowledge thou waken'dst for man? Come, come, come! Oh, ye who shake hills with the scream of your mirth, Then was kindled within him a thirst which outran Leave the bed, low, cold, and red, Leave the hatred, as in ashes Fire is left for future burning: When ye stir it, soon returning: Come, come, come! We are steaming up from Hell's wide gate, And we burthen the blasts of the atmosphere, IONE. Sister, I hear the thunder of new wings. PANTHEA. These solid mountains quiver with the sound Even as the tremulous air: their shadows make The space within my plumes more black than night. FIRST FURY. Your call was as a winged car, SECOND FURY. From wide cities, famine-wasted; THIRD FURY. Groans half heard, and blood untasted; FOURTH FURY. Kingly conclaves, stern and cold, Where blood with gold is bought and sold; FIFTH FURY. From the furnace, white and hot, In which A FURY. Speak not; whisper not: I know all that ye would tell, The stern of thought; He yet defies the deepest power of Hell. Those perishing waters; a thirst of fierce fever, His words outlived him, like swift poison Wailing for the faith he kindled : To a glow-worm's lamp have dwindled: FURY. Tear the veil ! What next? IONE. PANTHEA. The heaven around, the earth below Was peopled with thick shapes of human death, All horrible, and wrought by human hands, And some appear'd the work of human hearts, For men were slowly kill'd by frowns and smiles: And other sights too foul to speak and live Were wandering by. Let us not tempt worse fear By looking forth: those groans are grief enough. FURY. Behold an emblem: those who do endure Nor would I seek it: for, though dread revenge, PANTHEA. Alas! what sawest thou? PROMETHEUS. There are two woes; To speak and to behold; thou spare me one. Deep wrongs for man, and scorn, and chains, but Names are there, Nature's sacred watch-words, they heap Thousandfold torment on themselves and him. PROMETHEUS. Remit the anguish of that lighted stare; In each human heart terror survives And all best things are thus confused to ill. Were borne aloft in bright emblazonry; THE EARTH. I felt thy torture, son, with such mix'd joy Its world-surrounding ether: they behold PANTHEA. Look, sister, where a troop of spirits gather, IONE. And see more come, Like fountain vapors when the winds are dumb, PANTHEA. "Tis something sadder, sweeter far than all. CHORUS OF SPIRITS. From unremember'd ages we Gentle guides and guardians be Of heaven-oppress'd mortality; And we breathe, and sicken not, The atmosphere of human thought: Be it dim, and dank, and gray, Like a storm-extinguish'd day, Travell'd 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 these our liquid lair, Voyaging cloudlike and unpent Through the boundless element: Therce 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 SECOND SPIRIT. A rainbow's arch stood on the sea, I heard the thunder hoarsely laugh : His plank, then plunged aside to die. THIRD SPIRIT. I sat beside a sage's bed, And the lamp was burning red When a Dream with plumes of flame, To his pillow hovering came, 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. Nor heed nor see, what things they be; And I sped to succor thee. IONE. Behold'st thou not two shapes from the east and west PANTHEA. Canst thou speak, sister? all my words are drown'd. IONE Their beauty gives me voice. See how they float Orange and azure deepening into gold: 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 wildernesses, That planet-crested shape swept by on lightningbraided pinions, Scattering the liquid joy of life from his ambrosial tresses: His footsteps paved the world with light; but as I pass'd 't was fading, And hollow Ruin yawn'd behind: great sages bound in madness, And headless patriots, and pale youths who perish'd. unupbraiding, Gleam'd in the night. I wander'd o'er, till thou, O King of sadness, Turn'd 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 silent 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, On Death's white and winged steed, 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, |