Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE SUN-THIEF, by RHYS CARPENTER


Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE SUN-THIEF, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: A desolate mountain region. Snow and
Last Line: Cold and clear in the moonlight. Unbroken silence.]
Subject(s): Earth; Escapes; Fire; Grief; Hermes (mythology); Humanity; Love; Mythology; Prisons & Prisoners; Prometheus; Religion; Sun; Zeus; World; Fugitives; Sorrow; Sadness; Convicts; Theology


SCENE: A desolate mountain region. Snow and ice amid gigantic crags. Through
almost perpendicular gorges, glimpses of lowland and sea.

A VOICE

Wind of the dawn, grey herald, wake,
Fulfil thy solitary way;
O'er mountain tarn and frozen lake
Swift-footed, run before the day.

VOICES [singing]

Swing low, swing low beneath the night,
Ye hanging lanterns of the stars;
Slow-fingered morn with key of light
The golden East unbars.

A VOICE

Wind of the dawn, grey herald, rise
From shadowed foothills of the night.
Spread wide thy wings against the skies,
And sweep the mountains in thy flight.

VOICES [singing]

Farewell, farewell, your patient eyes
Seal fast with drowsy day,
And fainter, fainter from the skies
Your silver hide away.

A VOICE

Wind of the dawn, grey herald, come,
Put on thy mantle, streaked with fire;
The mountains sleep, the seas are dumb,
Wake, wake the world to new desire!

VOICES [singing; ever fainter]

Untroubled spirits set afar
Beyond the sphere of change,
Thou ever-burning summer star,
Guide of the shepherd's range,
Ye masters of the empty night,
Encircled crown and lyre,
Deep-running river wrought of light,
And beasts of shining fire,
Anew, anew when day is done
Your silent vigil keep.
Blow out your tapers for the sun,
And drain the cup of sleep.

A NEW VOICE

Still wheels the bear with silent tread
Around the frozen pole, and low
In cloudy East, Orion's head
Trembles above the snow.

ANOTHER VOICE

In billowed fog and curdled wrack
Uneasy turns the dreaming light,
And with impatient hand throws back
The cloudy canopy of night.

VOICES [singing]

White and silent lie the hills,
Frozen are their eager streams,
Starlit adoration fills
Cloud and shadow of their dreams.
Kings are they, in ermine robed,
Holy lovers of the moon
Floating past them silver-globed
In her magic plenilune.

A VOICE

Now creeps the pale, the laggard dawn
O'er cloven ice and shattered mead;
Where only sun and wind have drawn
Their furrow, falls the burning seed.
And see! with bluish tint and grey
In sudden growth and secret power,
The hidden blossom of the day
Springs up, and opens wide its flower.

ANOTHER VOICE

Like night-long reveller who spurns
The wine at dawn and leaves the feast,
The sun his goblet overturns
And spills its purple o'er the East.

A THIRD VOICE

Like sea-birds from their rocky nest
With turning wings and frightened cries,
O'er broken ridge and ragged crest
The sombre colours wheel and rise.

VOICES [at a distance]

Awake, awake! Come search the air
And probe the hollow sea,
Drive darkness to its hungry lair
And set the waters free.
Break bond of ice and seal of snow,
And bid the captive fountain flow.

Unfold the misty waterfall
And spread the rainbow wide,
O'er icy crag and turret tall
With shining pinion glide.
With needle keen of heat and light
Pierce every cloud on every height.

VOICES [close at hand]

Up, up through icy gorge and rift,
Through dripping cave and hollow rill,
The mountain's windy echoes drift,
And blend and soar, from hill to hill.
From wave and tree the shadow flies;
From under-sea the voices rise,
The valleys sing, and lo, a tone
Unearthly wrought of low and high
Is from the windy whisper grown
And shakes the roof-beam of the sky.
From caverns black, the frozen air
Whirls upward in a wild desire
And through the sun-god's flaming hair
Draws out the strands of naked fire
The stars are withered by the glow,
Where over cloudy ridges pour
In fiery blast and furnace-flow
The bursting gold, the molten ore.

OTHER VOICES

'Tis spent, the mighty stream is spent
On slope and height of cloudy field:
Over the shaken Orient
The sun-god lifts his burning shield.
And lo! in earth and sea and height
The glory wanes, the uproar dies;
The earth-cup fills with yellow light,
The sun moves upward to the skies.

[Silence and broad daylight. Entrance of characters: KRATOS and BIA
with PROMETHEUS.]

KRATOS

Clutch yonder ledge wherefrom the shadow falls;
Draw thyself up, and loosen not thy hold.

BIA

Accursèd land of glitter and of cold,
With icy ladders frozen to the walls,
With ruined chasms, and trembling bridges thrown
O'er cloven ice!

KRATOS

Against yon ridge of stone
Set fast thy feet; with either hand updrag
Thy burden.

BIA

Shattered pinnacle and crag,
Ice-monsters huge, and grinning phantasies
With splintered fingers pointing at the skies!
See yonder, how the gaping stone is rent.

KRATOS

So ends our toil of heavenward ascent.

PROMETHEUS

O sun, all hail, and thou far-shining sea!

KRATOS

Hast thou a word for these yet none for me?

PROMETHEUS

Eternal comrades, sky and wind and snow,
Ye sable ridges striving from below,
Cast your all-sheltering arms around me.

BIA

Nay,
These naked gyves shall closer lie than they.
Yon creviced ledge with socket and with bar
Shall bear the chain, and here beneath thy feet
The crawling ice with wizened bond shall meet.

PROMETHEUS

O cloudy palaces upraised afar,
Ancestral home mid wheeling sun and star,
Farewell!

KRATOS

Swing high thy mallet, blow on blow;
With toothèd fetter bind him.

PROMETHEUS

High and low
Drive fast each ring, with welded bolt conspire
To link the mastery of frost and fire,
Till flesh with fetter in one channel runs!
What fairer home than Earth's eternal hill
Paved with unthawing snow, lit with the sun's
Unwinking lamp, and tapestried with dawn,
Could shelter my inviolable will?
Your slavish task accomplish,—and begone!

KRATOS

Glad, glad are we to leave this fearful peak.
But thou who hast thy courage on thy lips
And with unshaken scorn and pride canst speak,
How is it in thy heart? Moves no eclipse
Across the flame of thy rebellious thought?
Are there no shadows in thy breast, to dark
Thine exile and thy torment? That fell spark
Of stolen fire,—tell me, what has it wrought?
Rebellion and requital!—all for naught!

BIA

Come, leave this task, and strive not with thy tongue
To fetter him whom bonds of iron hold.
Away! away! While yet our strength is young
Leave these unfriended heights of wind and cold
Where only death and desolation blows,—
The very sunlight shivers as it goes!

KRATOS

Yet one word more! When with its hungry fangs
Glutting and fearful, from thy body hangs
This monster of the cold, whose breath is frost,
Whose hair is drifted snow, whose claws are ice,
Cry not thy curses on us: thou hast lost
Our service through thy counsel. Thine advice
It was, whereby, when our wild brethren fell,
We stood unshaken; for we learned full well
To take the stronger tyrant for our own
And let the weaker god be overthrown.
Thy folly plucks thee down; thy wisdom's eye
Searches too far, and with excess of light
Blinds its own vision

PROMETHEUS

Shadows of the night,
From your eternal towers above the sky
Look forth, and with your sable band descend
To hide from me this cowering cursèd race,
My brethren,—who before my anguished face
Preach me their creed of selfish fear. Have end,
Mock me no more! How shall ye comprehend,
Who have but bodies wrought of ears and eyes
And lustful thoughts, whose laughter and whose sighs
Are but for food and aspen-leaved delight
That like a silver tree gleams in the wind?
Fools, fools! for ye shall perish. Dull and blind,
Ye shall be mouldered in the rotting night,
Which is the past whence never future rose;
And in your places man, cradled in woes,
Sucking the milk of knowledge from despair,
Shall hold the earth, inherit the bright air,
And with the ancient masters of the world
Be equal throned.

KRATOS

Like that distempered race
Whom Zeus and thou, and we, from Heaven hurled,
Shall they be throned, and with averted face
Mid Stygian sights rule their inheritance.
Farewell!

BIA

Nay, fare thou ill! Accursèd dance
Of golden glitter and of silver shower
Encircle thee, like wounded eagle pinned
Against a foodless crag.

KRATOS

Feast on thy power!

BIA

So shalt thou grow more haggard than the wind.

KRATOS

Monarch of desolation, famine-thinned,
Drink up thy memories' encircled cup!

BIA

Starve till thy very mind be wrinkled up
And all thy thought shake like a withered seed.
The frost and sun shall find thee still unfreed
For ever more.

KRATOS

Down! down! through gorge and cleft
Where winter-ice its rumbling path has reft,
Where loosened snow has torn its shining track,
Must we descend.

BIA

The very sky is black!

KRATOS

'Tis but the snow that burns upon our sight

BIA

Where leads the way?

KRATOS

Yon ridge upon our right.
[They disappear.]

PROMETHEUS

So are they gone. Eternal solitude,
Dark spirit of the waste, with comfort rude
Be near me now.
O vulture-wingèd hour
That brought me hither, with what hate indued
Was thy fierce onset! Ruthless, with wild power,
From cloudless heaven of time thy fury darted;
Like eagle hidden in a thunder-shower
It fell upon me and with stormswift flight departed
To bear me to its eyrie's rocky waste.
'Twas thou that sent it, tyrant hungry-hearted!
So may the hour of thy misfortune haste,
With poisoned talons rend thy breast asunder!

Ah me, vain are my words. Thy throne is placed
Above the winds, and in thine hand the thunder
Curls up its fiery head. With awe and fear
Gods bow before thee, and with stupid wonder
Men gape at heaven. The ever-turning year
With sun and rain, with growth of leaf, and fall,
Marks out the circle of thine empire here,
And thou art master, master, over all!
Yet one thou canst not tame! I give thee naught
Of worship nor of service. Canst thou call
These words thy slave? Or canst thou bind my thought
Which high o'er earth and under heaven flees,
My viewless messenger? Lo, thou hast wrought
Thine utmost evil on me, and at ease
My courage sits. Shall deathless passion cower,
Or fleshless spirit falter to its knees?

Ah me! Alone upon this windy tower
I watch the crawling sun: so shall he drag
His silent course for aye.
Lips, lose your power,
And tongue, be rooted out! this sleeping crag,
These fields of snow and shadow have no speech
Ye woven cloths, drop from me, shred and rag,
Till I be naked as these rocks. Oh, teach
Your fury to me, wind; your sullen state
Lend me, ye snows. For I would learn from each
Some constancy of passion and of hate
To front the ages with unmoving scorn
And with my laughter mock the tongue of fate.
And ye, bright comrades, thou irradiant morn
That with pure silk of pale ethereal blue
Hast hung thy deep pavilion, and hast torn
The spiderwork of night's malignant hue,
And thou who hast a mirror for thine eyes
In sea and lake and pool of gathered dew,
Be ye compassionate and bend your skies
In pity o'er me, send your shining beams
Within my heart, new glory to devise.
And thou, all hail, who mid thy frozen streams
Guardest thy crystal horde, dread snow and cold;
From myriad eyes dart not thine angry gleams
Against me more. Ye wrinkled crags and old,
Draw not your creviced brows in sullen frown.
Ye thwarting signs of hidden stars, withhold
Your baneful power, and with glad omen crown
My yet-unconquered fate.
I am as ye!
Make me your comrade. When from darkness down
The eagle falls with broken wing, when flee
Fear-stricken men to cave and shelter frail,
And when the winds in anger walk the sea;
When overhead the thunder's fiery flail
Threshes the heavens' floor, and downward leap
The flaming sparks, then riving blast and hail
Like you I bear; within my marrow creep
The pricking spirits of the cold; my hair
Ice-matted stands, and from mine eyelids weep
The frozen tears of anguish and despair.
Eternal captives, prisoned in the sky,
With naked shoulders to the driven air,
I am as ye! Dread mountains, am not I
Your comrade? Fettered crag and peak,
Open your heart, that I may there descry
The image of my suffering!
Oh, speak;
Let me but hear the semblance of a tone,
And in its sweet confusion I shall seek
An accent of that speech which is mine own.—
Oh, speak to me, unfriended and alone!

VOICES [singing]

Mortal flesh come not anear
To the sun's dominion!
Only spirit wanders here
With unearthly pinion.
Who would our communion share
And our solitude behold,
Let him drink of dew and air,
Let him eat of sun and cold;
Let his fingers dip the frost,
Let his lips be bright with snow,
Till his earthly soul be lost
In the radiant ether-glow,
And his spirit wander clear
With unearthly pinion.
Mortal flesh come not anear
To the sun's dominion.

PROMETHEUS

The air is full of voices, yet mine eye
Encounters nothing. Oh, once more, once more,
From you melodious fountains in the sky
Your hidden stream upon these ridges pour!
Silence and solitude! No living thing
Darkens the shining waste. Mine ear o'erstrained
From its own substance wrought the thing it feigned
Was outer song. Sunlight and splendour ring
The icy mountains; from the windy snow
Whirls up the flame and dances thin and white;
Keen arrows pierce mine eyeballs till the glow
Within my shuddering brain cleaves sense and sight.
Is this but mine own pulse that throbs in pain,
This ruddy sky, this streaming wound of light,
Or do the heavens, pierced with a dagger, rain
Great drops of burning blood across the plain?
O clouds, that from the deep horizon raise
The banners of your march, haste, haste your way;
Spread out your mighty shields, with misty haze
Besiege the sun, encircle him with grey,
Till from his flaming rampart he retire;
O'erwhelm his shining hill in stormy fray,
And in his camp quench every hostile fire.
Ye come! ye come! ye stream along the day!

VOICES [as if from the clouds]

Golden god, with dreaming eye,
Thou whose thoughts are summer days,
Thou to whom the windless sky
Sings and trembles in its praise,
Thou whose laughter smooths the sea
To a deeper sky for thee,
Sun-god, master, seated far
Where no clinging shadows are,
Thou who settest free our feet
Out of waterflood and dew,
At thy call we come to greet
Sky and sea and earth anew.
Thou whose fingers from the root
Draw the flower and mould the fruit,
Lyric god who leads the day
Round and round the earth for aye
With the voice of hill and plain
Laughing, singing, in thy train,
Lo, we journey at thy will
Up from pool and foggy hill,
And we wander, singing still,
Till we vanish, song and sight,
In the blue expanse of light.

PROMETHEUS

O music too intense for sound,
O ecstasy too high for song!
With what magic am I bound,
With what motion borne along?
Voices sweeter, singing clearer,
Born of dew and wrought of light,
O'er these ridges, nearer, nearer,
Song-impassioned take your flight.

THE VOICES

Who has bidden us assail
Our father the eternal,
And with shadows weak and frail
Bind the light supernal?
On the stairway of the skies
Climbing out of sea and plain,
At his rising, we arise,
At his setting, sink again.

PROMETHEUS

Have ye breath of spirit's being?
Are ye shadowy or fair?
Whence departing, whither fleeing
Do ye journey upper air?

THE VOICES

Alone we dwell, austere and high,
O'er mead and mountain, sea and wood;
We tread the crystal of the sky
And dream in sunny solitude.
Ours is a treasury deep-stored
With golden light of summer noon
And glint of midnight silver poured
From shining coffers of the moon.
The sun has taken earth to bride
And wedded her in secrecy,
We are the maiden veils that hide
Her mystical virginity.

PROMETHEUS

Yet again with silver voices
Sing to me, ye spirits bright,
Till my fettered soul rejoices
In the freedom of your flight.

THE VOICES

We are islands in the sea,
We are ships upon the air,
As the autumn leaves are we
Which the flooding rivers bear;
We are birds whose restless pinions
Speed them over earth's dominions,
Eagle-like and all unbidden
Searching earth with eager sight,
And our nesting-place is hidden
Mid the mountains of the night.

PROMETHEUS

Still let me drink the honeyed song,
In sweet of concord let me find
A healing joy till swift and strong
I break the fetters of my mind,
And high above my body's wrong
In music's flight leave earth behind!

THE VOICES

Ever, ever at our prow
Breaks the foamless flood of light,
And behind us whirls the flow
In a radiance pure and bright;
On our mighty sails the sun
Glistens as on peaks of snow
As our waveless course we run
O'er the airy flood below.
There like fishes swim the birds,
And the trees, like ocean-weed
Nourishing the deep-sea herds,
Are the depths wherein they breed.
Hill and valley drift from under,
Far the port for which we stand,
For the wind with storied wonder
Tells us of a distant land,
And we journey, seeking ever,
Finding never, finding never.

PROMETHEUS

Blessèd is the course ye steer
O'er the ether's sunny mere,
Ye that have no unrequited
Tyrant foe to bring you care,
Where the joyful land is sighted
Safe from tempest of despair.

THE VOICES

Yet our life is black with woes
When the stormwind hungry goes.
For the sun is like a shepherd
Who from dark of rocky den
Steals the young of wolf or leopard,
Rears it to the ways of men,
Mid his sheep
Faithful shepherd's watch to keep.

For the sun has drawn the wind
From the caverns of the sea,
Bids him like a sheep-dog mind
Clouds upon the shining lea,
While he lies
Dreaming mid the distant skies.
And lo, by the wolf of heaven,
Afar from the eye of the sun,
We are scattered and driven,
In panic we run.
Our cries nought avail us,
In flight are we banished,
And the fangs of the wind assail us
Till the last of our flock be vanished.
But at night, but at night we assemble
Our shattered and fearful ranks;
Where moonlight and starlight tremble
On river and ocean banks,
Where the heavy marshland steams
And pools their vapours lift,
Where the snow-fed water gleams
Through upland gorge and rift,
From foam of falling streams
And seas where islands drift,
We call on the mist and the rain
And gather our race again.

PROMETHEUS

Deceptive speech, delusive sound,
Unsaying what it said before,
Treading fancy's idle round,
Telling rainbow colours o'er;
Truth is not within your store.
Thoughtless are ye, without end
Building your illusions grey;
Is the wind your foe or friend,
Live ye with the night or day?
Now ye whirl in windy play,
Now ye blow through craggy rent;
Hark the thunder far away
Muttering in discontent!

THE VOICES

Follow! follow!
Away! away!
From pool and hollow
And ocean grey
Gather your vapour and misty fold
In myriad shape of fancy's form,
Blow with the wind, the dark and cold,
Gather the lightning and run with the storm.
We are the master
Of mist and rain,
Faster and faster
We summon our train
With thunder hollow
And lightning's play;
Follow! oh, follow!
Away! away!

PROMETHEUS

Hark how the thunder through the roofless chasm
His rage pursues, and like a blinded bull
Prisoned within his stall, in fury's spasm
Bellows his anger till the hills are full
With echoing madness. Lo, the leaping fire
Seeking release from his o'ercharged confine!
Rive heaven and earth, ye elements of ire,
With splintered stroke, rend, rend these bonds of mine!

[A fire-bolt strikes the rock to which PROMETHEUS is bound. Terrific
thunder. HERMES stands before PROMETHEUS.]

PROMETHEUS

Ah, ah! Dread gulf of light, filled deep with sound!
Now crumbles earth and sky.
HERMES [unmoved mid the tumult]
Hail, Titan bound.

PROMETHEUS

What art thou, that canst ride the unbridled flame
And walk the ridgeless air?

HERMES

From heaven I came;
Within the lightning's hollow wake I trod,
Borne by the rush of air.

PROMETHEUS

Thou slave of God,
I know thee well. What torment brings thee here?

HERMES

The word of him who master is of men
And ruler mid the gods

PROMETHEUS

The hoary year,
Long dispossessed, shall drag him down again
To timeless ruin. Go thy way, and mourn.

HERMES

There limps no sorrow to the cloudy halls
Where sit the feasting gods.

PROMETHEUS

Aye, ye have borne
A tyrant's rule, and cringing at his doors
For food, have called each other blest! Behold,
O sun, a beggars' rabble throned on gold,
Ruling thy shining world!

HERMES

Enough! thy tongue
Sweats with thy body's bitter pain. I bear
Heart's-ease and balm of healing pardon wrung
From unrelenting anger.

PROMETHEUS

O despair!
Is not his hate enough? must Zeus expend
His mockery upon me?

HERMES

Hear me to the end.
Free art thou, free! from every bond released,
Master of earth, welcome in Heaven's feast,
Throned at the hand of Zeus, or left or right.

PROMETHEUS

O noble foe, forgiving in his might;
How other than I thought, his spirit shows
With justice and with mercy. Break, ye chains!
I shall be free as every cloud that blows,
Unfettered as the surging sea.

HERMES

Yet reigns
O'er thy release a little thing, a word
Which thou must speak.

PROMETHEUS

Now draws the subtle net!
O thou deceptive messenger, I see
Within thine eyes the glint of cunning set,
And know thee what thou art. Hence, hence from me,
Lest with a Titan's strength I snap my bands
And crush thee with these anger-twitching hands.

HERMES

How canst thou hate what thou not yet hast heard?

PROMETHEUS

So grows the web of reason from a point
And spreads new circles, each as firm and fair
As those wherefrom they hang in perfect joint.
I break the thread before the web is spun
And blow its cunning wide across the air.

HERMES

Tell me, how art thou friended with the sun?

PROMETHEUS

As night to day, as snow to April thaw.

HERMES

How farest thou on this pavilioned plain
Of shining crystal?

PROMETHEUS

With its splintered claw
Cold rends my body.

HERMES

What of frost and rain
And what of winter when the summer flies?

PROMETHEUS

O pain eternal!

HERMES

Can thy thought surmise
A thousand years? What of unending time,
Sorrow that knows no hope, body and brain
Discordant on the scrannel-reed of pain,
Thy staring eyes fixed on this wretched mime
Of day and night, of season and of year?
Hast thou no thought of this? hast thou no fear

PROMETHEUS

Look down through yonder dizzy rift of stone.
What seest thou?

HERMES

Blue waters without wind.

PROMETHEUS

What else?

HERMES

Green meadow-land, broad acres—

PROMETHEUS

Sown
With yellow grain What else?

HERMES

Dark forest—

PROMETHEUS

Thinned
With ringing axe. What dwells there?

HERMES

Pine and oak
There spread their shadow, and in sheltered den
Live wolf and fox.

PROMETHEUS

There dwells the race of men!
Canst thou not see the wraiths of curling smoke
Like prayer uprising to th' eternal skies?

HERMES

Thou gazest with thy heart, not with thine eyes!
A wretched race, with cunning and with power,
There breeds and slays, there travails through its hour
Of toil and pain, and like a shadow flies,
Blown by the wind. For not by wisdom's might,
But by the lust of bodies, they endure.
Of sun and star they know not; for, impure,
They fear the deep serenity of light.

PROMETHEUS

O noble race of gods, whose rule abhors
All lust and hate, yet lives not long without!
Lust like a beggar crouching at your doors
Waits every coming-in and going-out
Of your distempered councils; at your feasts,
False hatred floats within the honied wine.
Do men, down-weighed with heritage of beasts,
Bring rude offence within your nostrils fine?
Turn back thine eyes on heaven with vision just!
War looks on Love, Love looks on War, and lust
Comes like a child of evil thought, and drags
Their sacred bodies to a hot embrace.
Wouldst ask me why, upon these awful crags,
I front eternal torment? In thy face
I cast mine answer: that yon mystic race
Unfold its wisdom, and from sorrow rise
To greater splendour than these morning skies.
Then shall the gods be sought in heaven no more;
For greater gods than ye shall come to birth.

HERMES

O foolish in thine all-fantastic lore,
Heaven is not made with thousand years of earth!

PROMETHEUS

From earth come all things. Are not scent and hue
Within a darkling grain year-long amassed?
So lies the future folded in the past:
Come, prophesy the flower from such a root,
Show me the stem, and augur me the fruit!
Only the Sun and Earth and I foreknow the last.

HERMES

Farewell the level beam of judgement true
When dreams and visions in the scale are cast.
Yet, greater is the weight that I shall fix
Against thy folly.

PROMETHEUS

Worse ye cannot do.
Tho' all the gloomy tortures of the Styx
Ye hang upon my body, I shall bear
All this for man.

HERMES

Thy body? nay, not there
God's counterpoise. Art thou not spirit, too?

PROMETHEUS

What threat of unknown torment lurks behind?

HERMES

Eternal vision, racking deep thy mind:
To see, and yet be impotent to do.

PROMETHEUS

So am I now, of all save sight bereft,
In impotence of iron-banded limbs.

HERMES

Aye, sight of ridge and rock, of glacier cleft,
And fold of ice wherein sea-azure swims,
Black cliffs amid the snow like evil scars,
The sun by day, at night the walking stars
Upon their dizzy parapet; all these
Are but the body's sight, that grossly sees.
There is a vision not of eye alone.

PROMETHEUS

Read me thy riddle.

HERMES

On a windy throne
Above the clouded peak of northern snows,
Where deep in Tempe's vale Peneus flows,
Sits Zeus, the all-beholding.

PROMETHEUS

Who upraised
That vision-seat for all the world?

HERMES

What sight,
Tho' cloud-embowered, could grasp all earth aright,
From such a pinnacle be unamazed
By light and shadow of a thousand lands?

PROMETHEUS

Where winds the mazy river of thy speech?

HERMES

To the broad sea and unobstructed sands:
There is a vision not of eye alone.

PROMETHEUS

I need but ears to hear, and I have heard.

HERMES

Yet have thy ears not sifted fine the word.

PROMETHEUS

Make not thy learning long, if thou wouldst teach.

HERMES

There is a vision not of eye alone.
Tho' closed thy lids, with slumber overgrown,
Thy mind shall see, and see with lidless sight
All earth and ocean, men and deeds of men,—

PROMETHEUS

O blessèd gift!

HERMES

The travail of the night,
The sorrow when the morning comes again,
The sweating limbs, the aching toil, the hate
Which sharpens knives for murder, thou shalt see;
And in thy seeing mockery shall wait:
This is my threat, if thou obey not me!

PROMETHEUS

Scarce would the shallow fool thy tenet mark,
To fear new knowledge for an evil grace.

HERMES

Blind men, who dwell their lives in dread and dark,
Shall be thine envy. Ever shalt thou turn
Tear-piteous sight toward heaven's most holy place
And pray yon sun with sulphured flame to burn
This earth to char of ashes; thou shalt cry
The ocean's flood, to rise with gulf and pit
Of yawning water o'er these utmost hills,
And make one level passage with the sky.

PROMETHEUS

With gladness new my captive body fills,
And swells as winter-seed with April rain.

HERMES

Alas, thine evil folly mends no whit.
Thy future years are darnelled with despair.
Yet mark me—

PROMETHEUS

Go! The folded ether-stair
Awaits thy wingèd feet.

HERMES

Mad Titan, scan
Thy wilful deed! unending years of pain
For thee—

PROMETHEUS

For me. Eternal life for man!

HERMES

Now shalt thou choose. Thus says the highest god:
'Give back what thou hast taken, aid me to destroy,
Give earth a nobler nation, free the cumbered sod;
Else shalt thou learn new torment, bitter vision's joy,
To see, as I, all lands, and men and all men's thought,
Bound with eternal bands, in agony of wrong,
To watch thy foolish plan unfashioned and distraught,
And all thy hopes of man a trifle and a song.'
Now shalt thou choose: eternal pain or power
Is in the choice. Give back God's pledgèd gift,—
Else woe, thrice woe!—and in this selfsame hour
Shalt thou be free.

PROMETHEUS

I heed thee not.

HERMES

Then lift
Thine eyes to heaven, far up in clearest height
To search for omen new.

PROMETHEUS

Against the light
Naught moves within the blue.

HERMES

Again behold.

PROMETHEUS

Across the disk of sun, dark on the gold,
There moved a speck, a mote.

HERMES

Now in the blue
It grows and grows, a tiny point—

PROMETHEUS

Now seems
Yet nearer grown,—

HERMES

And now more plain anew

PROMETHEUS

Larger it seems, yet would a grain of sand
Its circle hide.

HERMES

This is the gift of God;
This is the pain wherewith he breaks thy might
Till like the autumn leaf within the sod
Thy withered hope is trampled out of sight.
Not thunder-flame, nor ring of sulphured steel,
But other torment, fearful, shalt thou feel.
Take better counsel! Even now repent,
And ere the leopard-footed hope depart,
Give God his promise, and relent.

PROMETHEUS

Relent?
How little dost thou know of what I do!
The fallen waters of the firmament
Canst thou recall, or shape the Spring anew?
A thousand years for me are but as one,
And in that time I live.

HERMES

O fool! there shares
A comrade with thee all thy thousand years,
Who even now from distant eyrie nears
And out of heaven greets thee unawares

PROMETHEUS

A bird, an eagle sinking from the sun,
With wings unmoving, downward and still down!

HERMES

This is thy speck, thy mote, thy circle brown,
Thy grain of sand, that henceforth in thine eyes
Shall lodge unwelcome

PROMETHEUS

Wherefore is he sent?

HERMES

To give thee vision of earth's discontent,
The misery of man, the failure stark
Of all thy dreams and of that vain surmise
Whence thou didst fashion futures in the dark.

PROMETHEUS

O folly of the gods! have eagles wit
Save for the flocks that graze the mountain grass
And for the hares that like grey shadows pass
Fear-drawn?

HERMES

Yet two did on God's shoulder sit,
And from their eyes the flame of sight was hurled
Eastward and westward: by that light he sees.
Now he hath one, and thou hast one of these.

PROMETHEUS

So am I made joint ruler of the world,
And these white hills shall like Olympus lie!

HERMES

Yea, now is Knowledge equal-throned with Power,
And woe, thrice woe, to earth in that same hour;
For grief shall come of this. Not thou, but Pain
Shall be true king.... My task is done, and I
To mine ethereal mansion shall return, in vain
From golden floors departed to these snows.

PROMETHEUS

Lo, like the running feet of fire he goes,
Which herdsmen on the hills arouse.—
And lo, the eagle perched above my brows,
The bearer of new woes!
O soul, O soul, O prisoned child
Within me, how thy feet are fain
By waters dim and uplands wild
To wander with the sun and rain
And where the shadows on the grain
Like children in their play
Down-running to the windy main
Follow away, away.
O soul, how art thou prisoned in,
With thought still dreaming on its star,
A wolf whose foot in iron gin
Is trapped,—and lo, afar
He knows the hunting trails begin
That lead away, away
To waters where the grey deer are
And where the otters play;
And all about him laugh the leaves
And overhead the squirrels run,
And in his tongueless heart he grieves
And looks with longing on the sun;
Across his back the ruffling breeze
Blows softly; on the distant hill
The shadows and the birds he sees;
Dim odours all the forest fill,
He drags with new desire;
And in his foot the living fire
Bids him be still, be still.
O soul, O soul, O prisoned child,
By waters dim and uplands wild
How like the wolf across the moor
Thy roaming feet would run,
And following the rainbow spoor
Track homeward to the sun!
Bare and wild, the frozen mountains,
Motionless the summer air;
Only echo of far fountains
Breaks the silence of despair,
And the sun upon the cold
Like a Maenad on the hills
Flashing white, with waving arms,
Careless of her frenzied charms,
Dances swift and lithe and bold
Till the mountain stirs and thrills.
Ah, the sorrow which is silence chill,
The grieving which is thought,
And solitude, the master ill
Whereof my life is wrought!
Is no one nigh to heal my wrong?
Have earth and sky abandoned me?
Where are those spirits sweet whom erst I found?
I call you forth, ye slaves of song,
With phantom voice of melody,
With broken colours and with woven sound.

VOICES

As the wind in drooping sail
When the weary rowers fail
Drives unseen the vessel homeward, rich with freight of foreign bail,
As the crescent moon which guides
From afar the ocean tides
And unmarked within the heaven, safe in western haven rides,
We shall swell thy drooping wrong
With the magic winds of song,
Lead thy spirit's stormy ocean as the moon the tides along;
We are masters of a boon
Mightier than the wind or moon;
With our laughter and our singing we shall fill the summer noon.
As the sun awakes the rose,
As the moonlit river flows,
As the quiet breath of evening in an empty garden blows,
As the rain on meadow-drouth
Is the speech within our mouth,
Such as to the gathered swallows comes the murmur of the South.

PROMETHEUS

O ye with voices swift and strong
As the deep voices of the sea,
High hills I view, and valleys long,
Sunlight and snow; yet where are ye?

THE VOICES

Where is the dew ere the sun be dwindled,
Ere deep in the wood the night-birds call
And dusk rides fast on the air?
Where is the star ere its flame be kindled,
Ere long in the grass the shadows fall?
Where are the waves of the windless sea?
Even there, even there,
O Titan are we.
We are dew, we are wave, we are star,
Ere ever as water and light
On the earth, on the sea, in the skies afar
They are fashioned for earthly sight.

PROMETHEUS

What would ye of me that ye sing
Such enchanted spells
As alone from April spring
When the mist is on the dells
And in heart of living thing
Love, the resurrected, dwells?

THE VOICES

No longer lead thine eyes,
To drink of earthly sight,
But guide them upward to the skies,
The watersprings of light.
Here is joy and here is laughter
And no grieving follows after;
Heavy-winged is sorrow's flight,
Hither shall it never rise
From our joy to borrow;
Or, if once its wings were kissed
By the shining lips of day,
Struggling from the nether mist
It would lose its earthly way
And no more be sorrow.

Is it love that fetters thee
To that murky isle of earth
Beaten by the stormy sea
With the rainy winds for girth?
Love's true ocean is the air
And the stars its waiting isles;
Here alone is beauty fair,
Here alone enchantment smiles:
Leave thy helpless love for men,
Heaven calls thee back again!
Look no more, oh, look no more
On that sorrow-beaten shore;
Turn thine eyes on blowing seas,
Heaven's blue immensities
Where the cloud-foam shimmers white
On the verge of endless light!

PROMETHEUS

False spirits, sing no more.
Your darting flight, like evening swallow
Along an insect-haunted shore,
Lures me to follow;
Yet sing no more, no more,
False is your song, and hollow.
Who calls me now? what wingèd voice
Floating unseen
With wind-swept sighing and clear tones serene
Mocks at my earthly choice?

SONG [from above]

Fantasy, fantasy, sprite of the air,
I am she that is wrought of the sun and the mist;
Follow me now in the rift of the air,
I that am sweet, I that am fair,
Come with me, drink of the sun and the mist!
Immortal art thou, come thou up, come up;
Leave the dregs of thine earthy cup;
Look no more on the race of despair;
Let thine eyes by the stars be kissed;
I that am sweet, I that am fair,
Come with me, drink of the sun and the mist!

PROMETHEUS

Temptress with false heart and tongue,
Thou wouldst draw me to thy lair,
With thine arms about me flung
All thy lustful charm declare.
They that have not fleshly grace
Lure with spirit's star-lit face;
Soul's enticement they would spread
In the body-passion's stead.
Woe for them who thus are bound,
Whom fantastic dreams delight,
They shall rove delusion's round
Lost 'twixt evenfall and night.
Leave me, leave me! I would see
Only earth's reality.

THE SAME VOICE

Fool, content thee with thy folly!
Gaze on earth, the real, the true,
Till the mist of melancholy
Fill thine eyes and blind thy view.
Look before thee: thou shalt see
Earth in its reality.

PROMETHEUS

Wander forth, thou inner vision,
Over earth afar;
Heed not these nor their derision
They are but as shadows are.
Wander, inner vision, wander,
Like a boat on windless stream,
Or as on the slow Meander
Floating leaves are seaward drawn,
Or as in a summer dream
Drowsy thoughts drift toward the dawn.
Like the listless breath of air
When the shrill cicadas sing,
Like the vulture wide of wing
On his secret stair
Winding up to height serene,
Floating, no man's eye knows where,
Seeing, but himself unseen,
So be thou, bright vision,—borne
Like the earliest ray of morn
Which the sun before him throws
Out of lowlands dank and dim,
Lighting on earth's other rim
Crest of far Caucasian snows.

A VOICE

Tell me, for I fain would know,
What thine eye encountereth.

PROMETHEUS

Secret shadows drift and roam
Far above me, and below.

THE VOICE

So in hell's unlighted home
Driven by the windy breath
Whirl the shades of men departed,
Heroes sad and empty-hearted
In the idle house of death.

PROMETHEUS

Of the dead wouldst thou remind me
Who in endless grieving dwell?
With their memory wouldst thou bind me,
That with sorrow and misgiving
I should see, behind the living,
Open black the gates of hell?
Close thy raven-throated speech!

THE VOICE

Dost thou fear me, lest I teach
All too soon what thou shalt know
From the bitter earth below?
Spirits, lift your vapours dark
From the sunlit plain.
Come to greet thee, Titan, hark,
Trills and sings the meadow-lark:
Sunlight pierces through the rain!
Tell me, for I fain would know,
What thine eye encountereth.

PROMETHEUS

Swaying blossoms bend and blow
To the wind's enchanted breath.
One by one the hills appear,
And one by one the vales expand
With field and river-folded sand,
Now far and wide the skies are clear.

[With ever increasing rapture]

Ah, this is earth, ah, this is earth,
This wonderland of green,
'Tis here the springtime hath its birth
And here true love is seen.
This meadow laughs with red and gold,
This shining sky is blue;
From yonder thicket uncontrolled
A prophet sings anew.
And insects dart, and beetles fly
With shimmering wings of grey,—
O blessèd land beneath the sky,
Earth and the fields of day!

Was ever ought so fair as earth,
Was ever ought so free?
In all the starry heaven's girth
Dwells no such ecstasy;
Where fishes swim in every stream,
In every tree a bird hath nest,
And dancing flowers wave and gleam
Each as it chooseth best.

O thou all-fruitful mother Earth,
What lovers hast thou wrought,
That these thy children bring to birth
Unbidden and unsought
Each in his secret kind and place
Still others of the selfsame race
To fly and crawl and swim, and praise
Life and the mystic length of days!

Hark, how the woods, the dark, the still
With choir of singing voices fill,
Song mixed with sunlight! Soft of foot
The fawns that dance on dappled shade
Through tender growth of green invade
And browse the ivy to the root.

Beyond the sunlit forest lanes
On open meadow stalk the cranes
With nodding head and lifted feet;
And out of oozy swirl and marsh
Peer gloating eyes, and voices harsh
Croak their contentment of the heat.

In yonder sand amid the grass
The lizard, clad in shining coat
Of emerald and clouded brass,
A jewel of light, unwinking dreams.
The breath that swells his tiny throat
Alone unmakes him what he seems

THE VOICE

Come, let me lead thee!

PROMETHEUS

Whither wouldst thou guide me?

THE VOICE

Mark yonder flowers.

PROMETHEUS

A garden 'tis, beside me.

THE VOICE

Look as I bid thee! mark yon cluster bright.
Above it, see, a suitor's aimless flight;
Yon moth, with pattern gorgeous and undreamed,
Rose from a sombre tomb all silken-seamed;
Mark how he flutters upward through the air.
Watch, watch him well! Lo, what a sweep and swerve
Hath yonder swallow! what a flashing curve
Of wings,—and yonder moth—is where?

[A gust of wind passes, like spirit laughter. Voices sing from earth and
air.]

SONG

Come, with sweet and airy laughter
Mock the woodland deer,
Lure him till he follow after
Where the leopard crouches near.
Black and shadowy and cool
Lies the hidden forest pool;
Thither steals the timid fawn,
Thither steals the leopard wary;
Mock the victim, deathward drawn
By our laughter, sweet and airy.

ANOTHER VOICE

I have led the birds in June
Where on yonder pine
Breaks the hanging worm's cocoon
To a living moving line.
In slow pilgrimage to seek
Luscious leaf, their march is wended:
To the waiting birds I speak
And the pilgrimage is ended.

Then on whirling wings I rise
To the falcon in the skies,
And I tell him of the flocks,
Of the lambs new-born.
Or I guide the skulking fox
Through the dews of early morn.
Bleating cries and scattered brood
Fill my ever-changing mood:
High upon the nested rocks
Bleeds the victim, dead and torn

A THIRD VOICE

To the hound I blow the scent
Of the fleeing hare;
From his winter's warm content
I arouse the haggard bear,
Lead him to despoil the bees,
Or the nested ant disclose;
Then I dance and from the trees
Shake the blossoms in the breeze,
Tear the petals from the rose.

CONFUSED MULTITUDE OF VOICES

Midge and gnat and worm and fly,
Ere the Even ye shall die;
Moth, farewell thy painted wing,
Sparrow, wherefore dost thou sing?
Ere the owl begin his cry,
Bird and beetle, ye shall die.

Wolf, thou art not strong of limb,
Flee, thy fellow-wolf shall tear thee;
Fish, thou wonder-swift to swim,
Net and hidden cord shall snare thee;
Panther, wild and sure and grim,
Hunter's shoulder soon shall wear thee.

Hide, ye beasts, in sunless lair;
Under earth or high in air
Seek to vanish—we are near,
Death and fear! death and fear!

PROMETHEUS

Awful creation! that which thou hast made
Doth rend itself asunder; with devouring brain
It gloats on murder and the screaming pain
Of its own victim torn and flayed.
Yea, whereso'er I turn apart
The selfsame spectre-hand of death
Gripes at the terror-stricken heart
And throttles the last sobbing breath.
Mine ears are broken with the cries
Of life that unoffending dies
And, without speech, doth worse than speak,
Gathers its fear within its eyes
And all its torment in a shriek!

[Unrestrained laughter from every side.]

PROMETHEUS

Why shines the sky, so calm, so clear,
As tho' no grief were, no, nor pain?
Were I the spirit of yon sphere
I should not smile, so calm, so bright,
But I should veil with cloud and rain
This earth for ever from my sight!
O dying glance and breaking eyes
Of stricken beast and hunted bird,
Are ye unseen? your wounded cries
Are they unheard?
Hath this great world no heart!
And Earth, the mother, she that bore you,
Hath she no pity for you?
No, no; she laughs when ye depart,
Knowing that other children lie
Unformed within her, that her breast
Shall nourish others when ye die:
Th' unborn she loves—forgets the rest!
Poor woful lives! poor tragic race!
Oh, I can bear no more to look
Upon your fearful picture-book;
But pass, and turn my face!
And now mine eyes are borne along
As flies a tempest-driven cloud,
And on my tortured vision throng
The earth's bewildered crowd
Of drifting shadow, wind, and height
Where hurls the sun through rainy shroud
His shattered rift of light.

And are these men, these crawling motes
Within the sunbeam of the day,
This whirl of gathered dust that floats
Dimly across my cloud-built way?

THE VOICE

Nearer let thy vision stray.

PROMETHEUS

Myriad forms I see, and faces,
Temples and halls and market-places,
Roof and gable, stall and shrine,
With cunning built, with wisdom bordered,
And all with foresight planned and ordered:
Man's work, man's mastery,—and mine!

THE VOICE

Come, let me lead thee!

PROMETHEUS

Whither wouldst thou guide me?
I fear thy friendship; 'tis but to deride me.

THE VOICE

Tell me, what dost thou see?

PROMETHEUS

By rocky coast
I see the fishers straining at the net,
And overhead, with hungry cries, a host
Of waiting sea-birds where the ships are met;
Mid drifting shower across the rainy north
I watch the sluggish harvest creeping forth,
And on the southern threshing-floors I see
Mid-summer dances and festivity.

THE VOICE

Look inland from the beaten shore.
What says thy vision unto thee?

PROMETHEUS

In ivy'd cave and sunless gorges
The mountain people work their ore.
Amid the light of flaming forges
The molten metals seethe and pour.
The falling hammers clang and smite,
The naked bodies glow with light;
Leaning above the crimson heat,
The swinging smiths their iron beat.

THE VOICE

In pillared house and chambered room,
Tell me, what doth thy vision greet?

PROMETHEUS

By smouldering hearth, by fire-lit gloom
The spinning women tell their tale,
And as the shuttle threads the loom
They sing old loves that never fail;
And gaping children, hushed and round of eye,
Learn magic lore of islands in the sky,
Fantastic castles bright with beast and bird,
And wizardry too fearful to be heard.

THE VOICE

Thyself, at heart, thou art but as a child!
With thoughtless fancy clutching at the show
Of outward Seeming, still untaught to know
The inner hatred and the passion wild.
Look yonder! Sunlight and the glint of arms,
And gathering men aroused by loud alarms:
Now dins the shield, now clangs the buckled sword,
From forge and treasury the shining hord
Of link and chain and iron-welded form
Engirds the warrior. Altars blaze and flare,
And singing women lead the victim warm,
To bleed his life out to th' unseeing air.
They march, they march! Sunlight and glint of steel,
Where yonder from the heights and wooded hills
Down-runs the battle fray—

PROMETHEUS

The dayshine fills
With shouting, with the stroke and counter reel
Of men no longer men.

THE VOICE

Lift up thine eyes.—
Now look again

PROMETHEUS

The wounded!

THE VOICE

And the cries
Of those who fight their final battle now,
With pain, with death.

PROMETHEUS

On tortured mouth and brow
I read the victor

THE VOICE

Some have fled the moil;
Yet they return, the dying to despoil,
To tear the sword from its own master's hilt
And plunge it in the heart of him who wore it.
Carnage and pillage! look, the red blood spilt
Mirrors with purple hue the heaven o'er it.
Triumph and victory! and ere their hand is stayed,
Women will slay their children, and the maid
Will take the sword within her arms, and wed,
Rather than these, the grave's grey marriage bed
Before them harvest-field and village lie,
Behind them whirls the smoke across the sky;
And wheresoe'er they march, behind them go
The raw-necked vulture and the carrion crow.
O splendid race of man! thou earth, be proud
Of this thy child; ye mighty gods, be bowed,—
These are your votaries!

PROMETHEUS

Still, still! be still!!
Lest I should curse the land, the sea, the air,
And with my piteous accusation fill
The firmament, with finger of despair
Pluck out the sun from heaven!

[Renewed laughter and singing.]

SONG

Call the wolf who hunts alone,
Guide the prowling beast of night;
Where the wounded cry and groan
Comes the raven in his flight.
These were men for battle burning,
These, your masters, strong and cunning;
Ere their wives see them returning
From the sombre battle plain,
Ye shall know where they are lain
By red rivers running.
Spirits, would ye waste the land,
Tread the corn and spill the sack,
To the roof-tree set the brand,
Blow the spark in rick and stack,
Hurl destruction black before you?
Spirits, laugh and stay your hand,—
Man hath done it for you!

PROMETHEUS

Nay, forbear!
This is the fault and failure of the hour,
The storm between the sunshine. Judge the sea
Not by its winter turmoil and wild power,
But by its summer sweet tranquillity.
And man I will not judge by his misdoing,
But by his virtue, by his love renewing
Of peace amid the land, good deeds and truth,
Knowledge in eld, and mighty dreams in youth.

THE VOICE

Then leave this reign of strife: beyond its border
The swords are rusted, the stout bows are snapped,
And men and women, free from war's disorder,
Walk boldly. 'Tis the law's strong mantle wrapped
Around their naked fear, that keeps them warm.
What seest thou?

PROMETHEUS

A city wet with storm;
Three men with stealthy naked feet
Amid the windings of a street;
A secret portal in a wall
That opens to their knock.
They enter in a lampless hall;
And hark, from towers over all,
The watchers cry the clock.

THE VOICE

The king hath heard: from council late
He lifts his head; the day is o'er.
'The hour: and dreams mine eyelids wait.
To-morrow keeps the world from war.'
What seest thou?

PROMETHEUS

Unto his rest
He enters on that lampless hall;
The daggers flash across his breast;
Unto eternal dreams those eyelids fall.

THE VOICE

Come, leave this land of ill: beyond its border
There is a land no princes rule above,
But there each man is his own virtue's warder
And lives, they say, in brotherhood of love.
What seest thou?

PROMETHEUS

A forest and a field
Wherein a garden grows, where trees, that yield
Fruit in their autumn, shade a quiet farm.

THE VOICE

Man's heart is fed with vengeance and with wrath.
Watch well what here befalls.

PROMETHEUS

From forest path
A woman crosses through the field.

THE VOICE

What harm
Hath she ere done? Yet is she marked for hate.

PROMETHEUS

Singing she passes through the open gate—
No, no! I see within!

THE VOICE

What! hast thou tears
For earthly sorrows and for human fears?
What canst thou see to move thee?

PROMETHEUS

Children twain,
Two tiny bodies, by the threshold lie;
Blood stains the floor, the blood of children slain,—
O mother, mother, hush that dreadful cry!

THE VOICE

Before the stars are come, of grief she too shall die.

PROMETHEUS

No, no; not yet will I renounce my heart.
Malignant voice, this is thy wicked part
That leads mine eyes in search of death and sin,
That hides the thousand virtuous and shows
The one offender.

THE VOICE

Look! a city grows
Before thee: here are thousands. Enter in.

PROMETHEUS

Stop! stop! this is more fearful still, this mart
Of senseless streets and people without heart.
Yon is not smoke that hangs upon the air,
But man's own spirit drifting in despair.
Ah, what a wail is this which mothers cry,
'Our men are broken and our children die!'
With faces bowed between their hands, they weep,
Or, having lost the very gift of tears,
Too wretched to lament, too worn by fears
To search for hope, dully they wake and sleep.

THE VOICE

Each morning with grey eyes men curse the sun,
Each even when the fearful day is done
Weary they sink upon their hovel's floor,
Too tired to curse, too weak to struggle more.
And women whose fair bodies love's delight
Should wreath with worship and with singing crown
Sit hollow-eyed before the doors of night
And beg their children's food, or, childless, drown.
Here deep disease hath eaten out the mind
With hollow hunger for a needless wealth;
For gold they sell their thought, their sight, their health,
And clasp a treasure, broken-bodied, blind.

PROMETHEUS

Blind? Yea, would Fate I too were blind indeed,
Blind without light or vision! blind, and freed
From all yon torment of mis-shapen grief.—
I would that man were as a withered leaf
And I the stormwind blowing toward the sea!

THE VOICE

Close up thine eyes, so shalt thou straight be free

ANOTHER VOICE

Pinioned upon thy shattered ridge of cold,
Thou art alone; the mountains as of old
Encircle thee.

PROMETHEUS

O wild ravine and glen,
Ye empty ways, ye cities void of men,
With icy tower and crested roof of snow,
Fields without flower, and hanging crystal caves
That house nor beast nor hunter; glacier flow
And seas of ice that hide within your waves
No piteous life; ye solitudes of death;
I from the anguish of all living breath
Greet you again. Hail, Silence ether-stilled,
And thou ungrieving sun who with the stars
Circle the vault of night, where nothing mars
Your perfect round of cycles self-fulfilled.

THE VOICE

Yon sleepless messenger of God's despite
Holds yet his watch above thee, with his sight
To torture thee till thou repentant fall
Before the will of him who conquers all
If thee he conquer.

PROMETHEUS

O despair, despair,
Shut up thine house on earth and dwell with me;
Summon remorse and anguish, hate, and care,
To feast upon my vitals, dip their beak
Within the bowels of my misfortune, that shall be
Each day renewed lest that unholy feast
Have end. God of the healing sunlight,—speak!
Canst thou not lay some comfort on my heart?

A VOICE

Never and never shalt thou be released,
Till all the ages shall fulfil their part,
Till all the garments of the earth are dust,
Till sun and star are eaten out with rust,
And from the crumbled sky the weeds of ruin start.

A NEW VOICE

Afar, afar, a mortal spirit nears.

AN ANSWERING VOICE

Toward this unearthly place how can she climb?

THE FIRST VOICE

Some god hath wrought it, as a pilot steers
A driven vessel toward a port unknown.

THE SECOND VOICE

Wild are her eyes as is the face of crime:
Upward she labours as a cloud is blown.

THE FIRST VOICE

Like the wraith start of wind amid dead leaves
She climbs the air, or like the sweeping gust
Which feathers April pools with sudden flutter
And on the road whirls goblin shapes of dust.

THE SECOND VOICE

No speech of men her frenzied tongue can utter.

THE FIRST VOICE

Yet in her heart more bitterly she grieves.

PROMETHEUS

Maiden or woman, who art thou that nears?

THE SECOND VOICE

Madness upon her hath unholy power.

PROMETHEUS

Thou art too far from earth for earthly fears.
Peace, peace! what art thou?

IO

A forsaken flower
Torn from the stem and harried down the skies;
A star at morning driven by the sun;
The shadow of an eagle when he flies.

PROMETHEUS

Here rest thee.

IO

Where the eyeless storm-winds run,
Dark brothers with clasped hands and naked feet,
There sped I shrieking, terror's empty cloak
Wrapped like an airless mantle on my head.

PROMETHEUS

Wild spirit, rest thee.

IO

Like the driven sleet
Along bare hills, like rain-uprooted oak
Flung down a winter chasm, so I fled.

PROMETHEUS

Here shalt thou pause.

IO

Not here!

PROMETHEUS

What fearful flight
Still trembles o'er thee?

IO

Ah, the pain, the fire!
Now flare the torches, now in mad desire
He comes, the bridegroom on his marriage night!

PROMETHEUS

O fear-drawn eyes, drag not so fierce your sight
Hither and thither. Here no wild-wood beast
The hunters follow, here no hounds pursue;
The day-star comes untroubled from his East
Upon these hills, to hold all earth in view;
Here live the quiet spirits of the snow,
Here move unharmed, their white dominion through,
And know not man's unrest, so far, so far below.

IO

O striving breath, O stricken limbs, O heart
Wild as the north sea-tempest, O mad vision
Goading me onward with a god's derision,
O memory and fear, depart, depart!

PROMETHEUS

Lo, they are fled.—
O face more lovely drawn
Than over Asia's mountain steps the moon,
O feet and hands like the rose touch of dawn,
O eyes like stars in the soft night of June;
Come hither, oh, come hither, rest thee here,
Be no more troubled; let me drive thy fear
Like birds that break a garden's quiet gloom.
O flower of flowers the fairest, raise thy head:
The noisome birds are flown, and in their stead
I come to wander near thy fragrant bloom.

IO

Inviolate peace, thou of the rainbow height,
Send down on me thy silver cloud of calm
And wrap me safe!

PROMETHEUS

O thou than snow more white,
Thou art the bowl wherefrom the sun-god drinks
When weary of the sky to earth he sinks
And mends his fires against to-morrow's light
Lo, how he kisses thee!

IO

O thou all-healing balm,
Clear light of day, sun, and the deep of blue,
With thy bright splendour I am clothed anew,
And fallen from me is all earthly scorn,
As one who, bathing, sets aside her gown,
Her earthly gown, her grey and soiled and torn.
Unto the waiting water steps she down
And clothes herself in crystal of the sea;
O joyful light, so am I clothed with thee!

PROMETHEUS

What sorrow brought thee hither in such wise,
What mortal longing for immortal peace?

IO

I was a maiden once, with maiden eyes
Loving the olive-planted vales of Greece.

PROMETHEUS

Fair was thy home.

IO

My fatherland was there,
The light and colour of unclouded dreams,
Clear hills, and valleys broken with wild streams
In winter, and in summer still and bare.
Ah, the sweet-scented thyme, the holly dark
Mingled with lighter green! Sweet land, mine own,
Shall I e'er see thee more? There was I born
And there through girlhood to a maiden grown
I lived at peace. Thence was I ruthless torn.

PROMETHEUS

By man?

IO

Through god. Hearken the tale forlorn.
Upon a day, I stood alone, at gaze
Across the plain of Argos to the sea,
And suddenly a shadow crossed my ways,
Cast by no earthly shape: the sky, the hill
Were empty; man nor ploughing ox were seen;
No sound, except the far cicada shrill,
Echoed the summer heat; yet on my heart
Some one had laid a finger. With wild start
Backward I sprang: the olives, grey on green,
Spread downward through the plain and touched the sea:
Naught else.
That Even, in my quiet room
I lay in bed, and sudden on my mouth
Fell burning kisses, and about me flung
Were arms of passion. From the bed I sprung:
Only the shadows mocked me in the gloom,
And, through the window, in the shining South
The silver moonlight wandered on the sea:
Naught else. Yet, day and night, a pleading speech
About me hung, and things no mothers teach
I knew and longed for. 'Twas some malady,
Some god-sent evil.
All was changed: no more
I loved the olives shimmering in the sun,
The glimpse of sea that met the sandy shore,
The Mantinean hills that hunters shun
Lest they should meet a maiden goddess there,
Mycenae crumbling on its hill-top bare;
All sights and sounds of my familiar life
Pricked me to hatred, roused me unto strife.
Then—all one night I dreamed. Within his arms
A god's strong body held me: oh, the fire
That leapt within my blood, the maddened charms
Of kisses and of mutual desire!
All these I dreamed, and, waking, woke alone.
Straightway I told my mother, she my father told.—
Meseemed that Argos had a hundred eyes
Thenceforth to guard me round; by hearth and fold
Ever they watched me; by each tree and stone
Some spying slave my footstep would surprise.
I know no more to tell thee. Hill and vale
Have fled behind me, stream and snowy range
Have I o'erpassed; by frozen races pale
My frenzy drove me, and by cities strange
At midnight have I wandered. In my breast
An unknown passion will not let me rest.
But thou, what man art thou? what fearful hate
Has fettered thee against the gaping crag,
To die of hunger and of cold?

PROMETHEUS

'Tis Fate
And Zeus the Thunderer, who deathward drag
A soul that cannot die.

IO

Art thou a god,
Banned from Olympus?

PROMETHEUS

Let the Olympians nod
Above their cups: their feast I would not share!

IO

And dost thou suffer?

PROMETHEUS

More than I can bear.

IO

I pity thee.

PROMETHEUS

Thou art the first to give,
Of all that under sun and planet live,
This gift of pity. It hath ne'er come nigh
These eyries that the very wind defy.

IO

Poor sufferer, does no one visit thee,
No god steal down from heaven, with nectared cup
Beneath his chlamys hid, to bring thee word
Of thy lost comrades feasting in the sky?

PROMETHEUS

Snow-bitten speech of counsel have I heard
And threats more gloomy than a winter sea;
But all their friendship have they gathered up.
Only yon eagle bides with me. His friend
Is solitude, his only speech a cry
Above unpeopled rocks.

IO

Ah, could I rend
These bonds of steel, or shake this frozen tower,
How soon shouldst thou be free!

PROMETHEUS

A mightier power
Is thine for freedom. Come thou near, more near:
The winter trembles to behold thee here.

IO

How cold thou art. Thy very hands have lost
The fire that smoulders in immortal veins.

PROMETHEUS

It wakes again. The pangs of snow and frost
Have found no triumph. In thy mirrored eyes
Old memories rest, sun-beaten Argos lies
With all its heat, and Greece, the ageless, gains
Another lover.

IO

'Tis my ancient dream,
The world of shadows risen from the night!

PROMETHEUS

Up out of sorrow trembles my delight,
As through the ice about a frozen stream
The prisoned reeds still tremble in the air.

IO

And can a mortal to immortals hold
Such pleasure as they crave?

PROMETHEUS

A thousand fold;
For, in the earthly, heaven hath left its mark;
And thou, sweet maiden, with thy windy hair
Across thy naked shoulder flowing dark,
To me art fairer far than is the gold
That girds the waist of Aphrodite round;
And brighter than the breast which gods scarce dare
To look upon lest they by love be bound,
Is this thy body.

IO

Strong art thou and bright
As comes Apollo o'er Arcadian height
To slay the flocks for failing sacrifice.

PROMETHEUS

Thou radiant life among the tombs of ice,
Thou spirit mid the dead, with clinging lips
Suck out death's poison from my soul; sweet hand,
Pluck out my grief. As sun the glacier thaws
Until with broken thunder-cry it slips
From fold and crag, and leaves the mountain bare,
Thou burning body, melt my cold despair!

IO

Unto thine arms some reckless passion draws
Me helpless on! 'Twas thou whom all unknown
In distant Argos where I lay alone
Dreaming I yearned for; thou, for whose desire
On desert ways my feet have searched the land
Where burns the blood-red sun and with his fire
Dries up the stagnant rivers into sand.

PROMETHEUS

Love, seed and flower of all eternal things,
Thou rose of heaven that blossoms on the earth
And makes a garden wheresoe'er it springs,
Mysterious love, what praise can give thee worth?
For men thou art the glamour hid in gold,
The staff in power, the hope in honour lain;
Without thee princes shiver; and the old,
Who have not thee, their treasures clutch in vain.
Thou hast more forms than the grey ocean knows:
Thou art a lark flown skyward ere the day,
Thou art a cloud wherethrough the sunset glows,
The silent moon on his unbodied way;
Thou art a forest singing in the wind,
A well-spring risen from unwatered earth,
Thou art a flaming heath with storm behind:
Song, fountain, fire,—what praise can give thee worth?
Ah, clasp me tighter, breast updrawn to breast,
Mouth unto mouth, hand within hand at rest!
As shuts the flower wherein the fire-fly glows,
So would I hold thee, so would I grasp thee, sweet;
As sleeps the moth imprisoned in the rose,
So would I fold thee, so would I clasp thee, sweet.

IO

Then call the rocks and mountains to thy will:
They are thy slaves, thy bidding to fulfil.
Sky-peak and summit like a flowery cup
Encircling us with heavenward slope of snows,
As a white blossom at Even folding up
Shall join above us, their white edges close
And hide us from the world where no one sees or knows.

PROMETHEUS

So sinks the world, the peering skies
That erst were near above
Are hidden from our dreaming eyes:
'Tis ours to make the night or day,
To kiss our love, and weep our love,
And cast all but our love away.
Now am I drawn and lost in thee,
As a spent wave upon the shore
Its memory loses of the sea.
O loving body, yearning face,
Above me and around me pour
Thy beauty's passionate embrace;
Give me thyself yet more!

IO

I am the bird storm-weary from the seas,
And thou the isle whereon I sink to rest.

PROMETHEUS

I am the evening star that downward flees,
And thou the western ocean's waiting breast;
I the dark stream, and thou my secret cave;
I the worn wind, and thou the endless sand.

IO

I a poor shell let fall by children's hand,
Thou the deep ocean's bed to catch and save

PROMETHEUS

No, no, 'tis thou art precious: this thy hair
Is wrought of falling night, this shoulder bare
Is dawn, this breast the swelling day, thine eyes
A gift beyond all price and all surmise.

IO

As thought in melody of ancient tunes,
As stars within the dawn, as speech in runes,
So fold me up within thee!

PROMETHEUS

Soul and soul,
As nature's twain in blossom's single bowl,
Thou art a part of all that I have been.
The host of angry heaven hast thou seen
Fording the cloudy wrack, and in the deep
Lower than hell's grey underworld of sleep
The fallen Titans thou hast prisoned in.

IO

And thou hast lived in Argos mid the green
Of springing vine, and through the olive sheen
The dawn o'er Arachnaeon cold and pale
Has shone upon thee; o'er the blue Aegean
Thy dreams have wandered like a dwindling sail
Searching the misty havens Cycladean,
And thou hast wandered mad with moon-fraught eyes
Across the gates of Asia, wild and wan
Hast fallen at the pillars of the skies,
Seeking the god who erst in shape of man
Entered thy virgin mind—

PROMETHEUS

Nor shall depart
From that sweet soul wherein he lies at last.

IO

Yet I am mortal, thou immortal art;
And my poor beauty shall too soon be past.
Already hath the cold wrought cruel despite
Upon my body, and this pulse of light
Hath shaken every vein and burned my flesh.
Heal me with love, hide me with thy desire!

PROMETHEUS

Not thou nor I can break the earthly mesh
Of growth and fall wherewith the fates attire
Naked mortality. Yet children bear
Their mother's grace to generations new,
And beauty still endures, as sweet, as fresh
As first when women blossomed on the earth
Where beauty lives, eternal hope is there.

IO

Thine eyes the gaze of some distraction wear,
Thy speech elsewhither turns, thy kisses few
Scarce comfort me.

PROMETHEUS

I have not jest nor mirth.
I thought again of man, for whom I stole
The sun's eternal fire to light his soul.
Still must I plan for him, still help and dream
How I may yet accomplish, and be free.

IO

Prometheus! hast thou forgotten me?
Thy lips are cold as is the snow's own gleam,
Thy heart is frozen as the hills and seas
Of this unearthly place. O fearful strife!
Now dies my love, and all my gladness flees.

PROMETHEUS

Shall I for love be traitor to all life?
To man's misfortune shall I close my breast?
His seed is holy, neither sown in jest;
But comfort thee, I hold thee still as dear!

IO

I dreamed a dream, a golden dream, to find
A lover with no love in mind
Than love of me, no other hope nor fear
Than fear to lose me, hope to have me near:
How idle was my dream! Thou art not he
Who through the long lone darkness spoke to me
In Argos. Him I seek. Love perfect, true,
The god hath promised. Look, he comes anew
My bridal to make ready. Torches flare
With streaming smoke and hissing hair.
Round goes the revel: they have spied
The eager maid, the willing bride.
Now yonder—nearer—there, and there,
They rush upon me. See, they flare
With streaming smoke and hissing hair.
Touch not my feet! my flesh is fire,
'Twill burn the dancers. Lift me high'r:
I tread your shoulders! Flute and lyre,
Faster, faster!—Ha! the wind
Whirls me upward from behind,
And the air before me falls
Where he calls,—the god,—he calls!

PROMETHEUS

Madness! there are no dancers here, nor flame
Of torches!

A VOICE

She hath left thee as she came.
Her feet scarce touch the snow.

ANOTHER VOICE

She cannot fall,
For frenzy hath her.

PROMETHEUS

Spirits, oh, recall
Her lips to mine, her clinging body warm!

VOICES

Speak to the whirlwind, bridle fast the storm,
Or shut the mouth of fire: 'tis but the same!
In madness she hath left thee,—as she came.

PROMETHEUS

And oh, 'tis but the same in very truth!
Love is an hour's illusion, the flower of youth
That blossoms and, the selfsame day, is gone.
Now like the shadows closing round a fire
When sinks the flame to ashes on the pyre,
Visions of earth, ye come again! Indrawn
Like circling wolves about a nomad's camp
At thickening dusk, aye nigh'r ye creep and nigh'r.
Fearful ye gather, dark ye stand, and lower
With hungry eyes, waiting the final hour
When I shall quench all hope and break the lamp!

What wraith of cloud ascending from the snows
Its tufted vapour draws, as though within
There worked a spirit? Mightily it grows.
Hark, muttered thunder! Wisp and eddy thin
It shapes and gathers to gigantic form.

VOICE OF ZEUS

'Tis I, the master of the flaming storm!
I come for vengeance.

PROMETHEUS

Vengeance hast thou taken.
My courage hast thou torn, my spirit shaken.
I cannot suffer more. Fearless I greet
Thy coming now.

ZEUS

My going shalt thou hail
With other music, when across thy pain
New anguish shrills and blows. Grey-eyed and pale
The gods lean out of heaven and watch in vain
For smoke of sacrifice and savour sweet
From altars odorous with fat and fire.
Thou, my rebellious slave, with thy desire
Hast taught impiety to man.

PROMETHEUS

Are ye
Not masters of the air and earth and sea?
What need have such for man's poor offering?

ZEUS

No life upon my altar bleeds or burns,
No yoke of oxen to my flames they bring;
And we in heaven are hungry.

PROMETHEUS

Man returns,
To them that made him, fitting thanks thereby.
For what hath man that he should thank the sky?
Sorrow ye gave him, sweat and tears and hate,
And bondage unto man, and bondage unto fate.
Of his own cattle, his wolf-guarded flocks
Unto the gods he gave, from fear lest they
Should send their anger on him and should slay
His hard prosperity. With bolts and locks
He shut out thieves, but not God's thieving host;
And so he gave. But now he knows more clear
That gods are but the shades of savage fear,
The terror of weak minds. Thou haggard ghost,
Starve, starve in heav'n. Man shall not feed thee more!

ZEUS

But thou shalt eat the feast of his despair.
I, the dead god of drifting rain and air,
In death so curse thee.

PROMETHEUS

Thou hast cursed before,
And I endure.

ZEUS

Endure? yea, this my curse,—
That thou endure for aye, and ageless see
The good grown bad, the better changed to worse.
All pain shall be thine own.—The fish o' the sea
Grow like their habitation, sand and shore
Their colours print upon them; winter snow
Brings plumage white to raven-feathered flock.
So thou, beholding pain, shalt nearer grow
To the deep Dark of suffering, and know
Each grief as were 't thine own. Each fearful shock
Of life tormented and of hope forlorn
Shall strike thee with its outrage: spirits grow
Like that which they behold. With vision worn
Look forth on earth, feel its eternal pain;
For so I curse thee to eternal woe,
I, the dead god of drifting air and rain.

PROMETHEUS

Long, long ago my triumph I foretold!
Sunlight and water rule the cloudy lands,
The winds within their fleshless fingers hold
Fair and foul weather, on the tidal sands
Thou and thine airy brethren of the storm
Make and destroy, yea, with a breath unform;
So for a million years ye ruled alone.
Then out of ocean crept an eyeless thing,
Poor helpless wanderer, whom ye could kill;
Yet ages passed, and now with claw and wing
This marvel clothed its weakness. Ye were still
Its master—blind to let it strive, and plan
With senseless cunning mightier shapes and powers,
Till with its growth of ageless shaping hours
The beast was perfect, and the thing was man.
Fools, had ye slain it ere its form was rife,
Still would ye rule with waterflood and wind;
But I alone foresaw that ye were blind:
I stole the sun-fire, stole eternal life,
And of creative flame I made a soul
To light the world to beauty.

ZEUS

Cursèd fire!
So may it fall within the empty bowl
Of time, as sinks a brand on ashen pyre
At daybreak without strength!

PROMETHEUS

The gods are dead.

ZEUS

Man hath denied us faith, whereby we are.

PROMETHEUS

Look, the far northern skies are kindled red:
There, too, the gods are dying.

ZEUS

Deathless sun,
Eternal giver, save me!

PROMETHEUS

Star on star
The heavens are builded, yet there is not one
In all that multitude to shelter thee;
Fearstricken like a comet shalt thou flee,
And vanish as the burning dust of air

ZEUS

Yet have I vengeance: man within thy brain
Shall sin and suffer with undying pain,
And thou shalt be his angel of despair
I go. No eye shall see me; but the storms
Shall be my threnody; their wailing cry
Hath all the voices of the things that die,
Earth's lamentation for her primal forms,
Her ancient gods that feasted in her sky.

[He vanishes in cloud.]

PROMETHEUS

Mist and the puff of air,—the empty rain
Falls on the earth, and god so lightly dies.
Storm, water-flood, and wind, the rifted skies,
Speak dread and deathly language to our ear;
Yet if we prove them, all their threats are vain.
My foe most feared has proven least a foe,
And loosed is he who thought to bind me here.
Now shall prophetic generations grow;
Wisdom awakes in men, and truth is near
To greet them Old imaginings no more
Torment them; a new radiance fills the air:
The splendour of the drooping daylight shines
With purer gold on field and ocean floor;
In tree and grass and waving frond it twines
Strong amorous fingers, as once strove the hand
Of Ares deep in Aphrodite's hair.
'Tis sunset, and the storm hath swept the land.
Now comes my freedom with new ages fair.

VOICES

Climbing up with foot and finger
Through the crevice of the night,
At the dawn we saw thee linger
When the eastern peaks were bright.
'Twas a reed that in the river
Drank of water, breathed of air;
In thy hand we saw it quiver
On thy cloud-upbuilded stair.

Through the reed the leaping glow
Deep in earthly spirit flew;
In man's savage breath and flow
Radiance of thought he drew.
Soul on earth and sun in height
Burned in one desire,
Flame of thought and flame of light,
Mystic marriage of fire.

But to thee that brought the reed
Cometh sorrow swiftly stealing;
With man's anguish shalt thou bleed;
Feel the wound and find no healing.
'Woe for man!' thy mouth shall say,
And thy tears shall stain the sky;
But earth shall not pass away,
And thy spirit cannot die.

PROMETHEUS

Visions of earth return, a crowding light—

VOICES

He speaks no more. Look, look upon his eyes,
How throbs the torment of unwilling sight!
All earth's iniquity within them lies;
His limbs in torment writhe, his straining mouth
Breaks on a cry too terrible for flesh.
All that he sees, he suffers. Age and pain
Awake with him; sickness, famine, drouth
Their lean and torturing hunger feed afresh.
Hatred and disillusion rise again,
And all the tears of men, and sorrows all,
Sweep over him. He sinks exhausted down
And hangs within his fetters, as the dead
At frozen doors in winter darkness fall.

[Entrance of KRATOS and BIA.]

KRATOS

On yonder jutting crag above thy head
We fettered him.

BIA

The selfsame ridges frown,
The white ice splinters, and the whirlwind snow
Still spins above it.

KRATOS

Aye, but where is he?

BIA

I see him not. Long since the glacier-flow
Hath torn him downward in its frozen sea
And shut him fast.

KRATOS

Look there, yon sunken form,
Yon wasted arms that shrink within their steel,
Yon haggard features motionless with death!
No longer shall that body wake to feel
Its prison!

BIA

Still the failing blood is warm
Within him; from his lips yet comes the breath.

KRATOS

Titan,—Prometheus,—lift thy head and speak
We come to break thy fetters. Zeus hath died,
And all the gods Olympian are grown weak
To hinder us. For we alone abide,
Who were at first and shall be at the end.

BIA

He hears us not.

KRATOS

Thou wert our ancient friend,
And we are come to free thee.

BIA

Bolt and ring
From the strong ice and girded rock I rend.
Thy bonds are broken.

PROMETHEUS

Who are ye that bring
Freedom of body? Can ye free the mind
From hate and falsehood and illusion blind?
The hope that sinks unspoken in the heart
And dies in silence, bitter joys as brief
As winter sunshine, loves that aye depart,
The tongues of horror, the blear eyes of grief,
Ruin and death and famine and disease,
The endless useless trafficking and strife,
The deeds of man that all were best undone
Since e'en the best are evil, yea, the life
That mine own folly quickened with the sun,—
Ye cannot free me, if ye change not these!

KRATOS

Thy love for men is broken at the last!

PROMETHEUS

Hear me, and judge. Beasts of the wood were they,
Earth's thoughtless brood, uncognizant of ill,
Not knowing what they did. And like their past
Had been their future save for my wild will
That planned a race, ethereal, yet sprung
From earth,—a lamp of earthen clay
To hold the flame of heaven. Upon their tongue
I set the shape of speech and in their heart
All strange imaginings wherewith to bind
Earth, air, and ocean in high sovereignty.

BIA

All these they rule, nor fear the very sky
For all its stormy fire.

PROMETHEUS

I wrought their mind
For cunning, that they might endure; but still
The beast ancestral wrought his heritage of ill,
Still seized upon them, made them wrathful, strong,
Lustful and ruthless, choosing right or wrong
As pointed profit. There are slaves on earth;
Nay, every child is seared and marked from birth
For toil and grief and torment. He that grows
In soul more godlike, learns a thousand woes,
And dies in shadow, grieving for his race.

KRATOS

How otherwise within the hall of Zeus
We heard thee speak!

PROMETHEUS

I had not suffered then.
Singly my spirit lived within its place
Till, pining captive here, it learned to loose
Its selfish bonds and join the hearts of men.
I searched the hills, the deserts of the snow,
The singing voices of untroubled light,
With love I sought to hide me from all sight,
Yet never could forget the voiceless woe
Of earth's unhappy children from below.
My spirit turned to them at last, and learned
To see and thence to suffer, till it yearned
Toward all despairing creatures, to be one
With all that flies and swims and crawls beneath the sun.
Their soul is mine, and mine is theirs; and ye,
Because they suffer, cannot set me free.

KRATOS

The daylight wanes, the cold of night descends,
And we must leave the snow. Bide here no more.
Thou hast thy freedom.

PROMETHEUS

Yea, my exile ends;
The solitude of thought and dreams is o'er.
My home is earth, and men my children are,
For me to cherish. Tho' they suffer still,
Their wars shall lead to peace; good comes from ill,
Clear hope yet gleams with its incessant star,
And high in heaven the rainbow of to-morrow
Still shines across the tempest of their sorrow.
But ah, for me there is unending pain;
For much shall fail, and ages be in vain

[They descend and disappear.]

VOICES [from the remotest height]

Go down, go down. Men crucify,
They stone their prophets, mock the bard;
Thou, the undying, shalt be scarred
With every death that slaves can die.
Each generation shall defy
Thy power and slay thee. Have not fear!
With generation new thou'lt rise
Within their inmost hearts again,
To lead once more the hopes of men
And lift their vision to the skies.
So shalt thou die as dies the year
Each winter, and, when comes the spring,
Wakes for a mightier harvesting.

A NEW VOICE

Evening, where art thou?

A SECOND VOICE

Here at hand.

THE FIRST VOICE

The sun is gone. Make dark the land.

THE SECOND VOICE

I make it dark.

THE FIRST VOICE

Ye of the night,
Where are ye?

VOICES

Here at hand.

THE FIRST VOICE

Make bright
Your lanterns, hang their radiance high.

VOICES

We make them bright.

THE FIRST VOICE

Ye of the sky,
Call the night wind.

OTHER VOICES

We summon him.
He waits.

THE FIRST VOICE

Earth, sea, and air, be dim
Come, sleep, and close each daylit eye.

VOICES [singing]

Open now the secret treasure,—
Silver shines the moon;
Pour the stars in gleaming measure,
Set the sky's enchanted rune
In the sea my mirror lies;
Heaven with a thousand eyes
Will be searching for it soon.
Swallows end their evening flight,
Sheep are folded in their pen,
Quiet are the homes of men;
Wind, be still, on tree and hill;
Ye waters all, good night!

MORE DISTANT VOICES

Now the world of men is sleeping,
Grey eternal forms come creeping,
And the hand of night unbars
Holier portals to our sight,
Of the stars beyond the stars
And the night beyond the night,
Mightier faith and mightier thought,
Silver air and secret dew,
Space unfilled and time unwrought,
Hope that ne'er in daylight grew.

[The voices cease. Out of the darkness the snowfields and mountain-peaks shine
cold and clear in the moonlight. Unbroken silence.]





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