And, hark! their sweet, sad voices! 'tis despair Chorus. Tho' Ruin now Love's shadow be, Mingled with love and then dissolved Following him, destroyingly, in sound. Panthea. Canst thou speak, sister? On Death's white and wingèd steed, Trampling down both flower and weed On their sustaining wings of skiey Thou shalt quell this horseman grim, grain, Orange and azure deepening into gold: Their soft smiles light the air like a star's fire. Chorus of Spirits. Hast thou beheld the form of love? Fifth Spirit. As over wide dominions I sped, like some swift cloud that wings the wide air's wildernesses, Woundless though in heart or limb. Prometheus. Spirits! how know ye this shall be? Chorus. In the atmosphere we breathe, As buds grow red when the snow-storms flee, From spring gathering up beneath, Whose mild winds shake the elder brake, And the wandering herdsmen know That planet-crested shape swept by on That the white-thorn soon will blow: lightning-braided pinions, Wisdom, Justice, Love, and Peace, Scattering the liquid joy of life from his When they struggle to increase, ambrosial tresses: His footsteps paved the world with light; but as I past 'twas fading, And hollow Ruin yawned behind: great sages bound in madness, And headless patriots, and pale youths who perished, unupbraiding, Gleamed in the night. I wandered o'er, till thou, O King of sadness, Turned 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, Are to us as soft winds be To shepherd boys, the prophecy Which begins and ends in thee. Ione. Where are the Spirits fled? Panthea. Only a sense Remains of them, like the omnipotence Of music, when the inspired voice and lute Languish, ere yet the responses are mute, Which thro' the deep and labyrinthine soul, Like echoes thro' long caverns, wind and roll. Prometheus. How fair these airborn shapes! and yet I feel But treads with killing footstep, and fans Most vain all hope but love; and thou All things are still: alas! how heavily Dream visions of aerial joy, and call the This quiet morning weighs upon my And wake, and find the shadow Pain, Tho' I should dream I could even sleep as he whom now we greet. with grief If slumber were denied not. I would Cradled in tempests; thou dost wake, O fain Be what it is my destiny to be, Spring! O child of many winds! As suddenly The saviour and the strength of suffer- Thou comest as the memory of a dream, Which now is sad because it hath been ing man, Or sink into the original gulph of things: no more. sweet; Like genius, or like joy which riseth up As from the earth, clothing with golden clouds Panthea. Hast thou forgotten one The desert of our life. who watches thee The cold dark night, and never sleeps but when The shadow of thy spirit falls on her? And haunted by sweet airs and sounds, Among the woods and waters, from the ether Of her transforming presence, which If it were mingled not with thine. END OF THE FIRST ACT ACT II SCENE I.-MORNING. A LOVELY VALE IN THE INDIAN CAUCASUS. Asia. This is the season, this the day, the hour; At sunrise thou shouldst come, sweet sister mine, Too long desired, too long delaying, come! How like death-worms the wingless moments crawl! The point of one white star is quivering still Deep in the orange light of widening morn Beyond the purple mountains: thro' a chasm Of wind-divided mist the darker lake Reflects it now it wanes: it gleams again As the waves fade, and as the burning Of woven cloud unravel in pale air : like snow The roseate sunlight quivers: hear I not The Eolian music of her sea-green plumes Winnowing the crimson dawn? [PANTHEA enters. I feel, I see Those eyes which burn thro' smiles that fade in tears, From all the blasts of heaven Like stars half quenched in mists of thou hast descended: silver dew. Yes, like a spirit, like a thought, which Beloved and most beautiful, who wearest And beatings haunt the desolated heart, The sea; my heart was sick with hope, Which should have learnt repose: thou hast descended before The printless air felt thy belated plumes. Panthea. Pardon, great Sister! but Fell from Prometheus, and the azure my wings were faint With the delight of a remembered dream, winds night Grew radiant with the glory of that form Which lives unchanged within, and his voice fell Satiate with sweet flowers. I was wont Like music which makes giddy the dim to sleep Peacefully, and awake refreshed and calm Both love and woe familiar to my heart Under the glaucous caverns of old Ocean moss, Our young Ione's soft and milky arms Locked then, as now, behind my dark, moist hair, While my shut eyes and cheek were pressed within The folded depth of her life-breathing bosom : But not as now, since I am made the wind As the warm ether of the morning sun Which fails beneath the music that I Wraps ere it drinks some cloud of wanbear dering dew. Of thy most wordless converse; since I saw not, heard not, moved not, only dissolved felt Into the sense with which love talks, His presence flow and mingle thro' my my rest blood Was troubled and yet sweet; my waking Till it became his life, and his grew Of what might be articulate; tho' still was none. Ione wakened then, and said to me: "Canst thou divine what troubles me to-night? I always knew what I desired before, Nor ever found delight to wish in vain. But now I cannot tell thee what I seek; I know not; something sweet, since it is sweet Even to desire; it is thy sport, false sister; Thou hast discovered some enchantment old, Whose spells have stolen my spirit as I slept Asia. There is a change: beyond their inmost depth I see a shade, a shape: 'tis He, arrayed In the soft light of his own smiles, which spread Like radiance from the cloud-surrounded moon. Prometheus, it is thine! depart not yet! Say not those smiles that we shall meet again Within that bright pavilion which their beams Shall build on the waste world? The dream is told. What shape is that between us? Its rude hair Roughens the wind that lifts it, its regard And mingled it with thine: for when Is wild and quick, yet 'tis a thing of air I answered not, for the Eastern star As we sate here, the flower-infolding Thine eyes, that I may read his written | A wind swept forth wrinkling the Earth soul! with frost : Panthea. I lift them tho' they droop I looked, and all the blossoms were beneath the load blown down; Of that they would express: what canst But on each leaf was stamped, as the thou see blue bells But thine own fairest shadow imaged Of Hyacinth tell Apollo's written grief, there? Asia. Thine eyes are like the deep, blue, boundless heaven Contracted to two circles underneath Their long, fine lashes; dark, far, measureless, Orb within orb, and line thro' line in woven. Panthea. Why lookest thou as if a spirit past? O, FOLLOW, FOLLOW! Asia. As you speak, your words Fill, pause by pause, my own forgotten sleep With shapes. Methought among the lawns together We wandered, underneath the young gray dawn, And multitudes of dense white fleecy clouds Were wandering in thick flocks along the mountains Shepherded by the slow, unwilling wind; And the white dew on the new bladed grass, Just piercing the dark earth, hung silently: And there was more which I remember not : But on the shadows of the morning clouds, Athwart the purple mountain slope, was written FOLLOW, O, FOLLOW! as they vanished by, And on each herb, from which Heaven's dew had fallen, The like was stamped, as with a withering fire, A wind arose among the pines; it shook The clinging music from their boughs, and then Low, sweet, faint sounds, like the farewell of ghosts, Were heard: O, FOLLOW, FOLLOW, And then I said: "Panthea, look on me." |