Thou knowest if Jupiter be such or no.
Asia. Whom called'st thou God?
Demogorgon. I spoke but as ye
speak,

For Jove is the supreme of living things.
Asia. Who is the master of the
slave?
Demogorgon.
If the abysm
Could vomit forth its secrets. . . But a
voice

Each to itself must be the oracle.
One more demand; and do thou answer

me

As mine own soul would answer, did it know

That which I ask.

arise

And now, even now, they clasped it.
Their bright locks

Stream like a comet's flashing hair: they
all

Sweep onward.

Demogorgon. These are the immortal
Hours,

Of

Is wanting, the deep truth is imageless;
For what would it avail to bid thee gaze
On the revolving world? What to bid
speak

Fate, Time, Occasion, Chance, and Who art thou?
Change? To these

All things are subject but eternal Love.
So much I asked before, and
my heart gave

Asia.

The response thou hast given; and of Has

such truths

whom thou didst demand. One waits for thee.

Asia. A spirit with a dreadful coun

tenance

Checks its dark chariot by the craggy gulph.

Unlike thy brethren, ghastly charioteer, Whither wouldst thou bear me? Speak!

Spirit. I am the shadow of a destiny More dread than is my aspect: ere yon planet

set, the darkness which ascends with me

Shall wrap in lasting night heaven's kingless throne.

Asia. What meanest thou? Panthea. That terrible shadow floats Prometheus shall Up from its throne, as may the lurid smoke Henceforth the sun of this rejoicing Of earthquake-ruined cities o'er the sea. world: Lo! it ascends the car; the coursers fly When shall the destined hour arrive? Terrified: watch its path among the stars Demogorgon. Behold! Blackening the night! Asia. The rocks are cloven, and Asia. through the purple night

Thus I am answered:

I see cars drawn by rainbow-winged

steeds

strange! Panthea. See, near the verge, another chariot stays;

Which trample the dim winds: in each | An ivory shell inlaid with crimson fire, there stands Which comes and goes within its sculp A wild-eyed charioteer urging their tured rim flight.

Of delicate strange tracery; the young

Some look behind, as fiends pursued them there,

And yet I see no shapes but the keen

stars:

Others, with burning eyes, lean forth, and drink

With eager lips the wind of their own

spirit

That guides it has the dove-like eyes of hope;

How its soft smiles attract the soul! as light

Lures winged insects through the lampless air.

speed,

Spirit.

As if the thing they loved fled on before, My coursers are fed with the lightning,

They drink of the whirlwind's stream, And when the red morning is brightning They bathe in the fresh sunbeam; They have strength for their swiftness I deem,

Then ascend with me, daughter of Ocean.

I desire and their speed makes night kindle;

I fear they outstrip the Typhoon ; Ere the cloud piled on Atlas can dwindle We encircle the earth and the moon: We shall rest from long labours at

noon:

Then ascend with me, daughter of Ocean.

SCENE V.-THE CAR PAUSES WITHIN
A CLOUD ON THE TOP OF A SNOWY
MOUNTAIN. ASIA, PANTHEA, and

the SPIRIT OF THE HOUR.

My coursers are wont to respire;
But the Earth has just whispered a warn-

ing

That their flight must be swifter than fire:

Spirit.

caves

On the brink of the night and the And all that dwells within them; till morning

Panthea. How thou art changed!
I dare not look on thee;

I feel but see thee not. I scarce endure
The radiance of thy beauty.
good change

Some

Is working in the elements, which suffer
Thy presence thus unveiled. The

Nereids tell

Spirit. The sun will rise not until noon. Apollo

That on the day when the clear hyaline Was cloven at thy uprise, and thou didst stand

Is held in heaven by wonder; and the
light

Which fills this vapour, as the aërial hue
Of fountain-gazing roses fills the water,
Flows from thy mighty sister.

Panthea.

Yes, I feel Asia. What is it with thee, sister? Thou art pale.

Within a veinèd shell, which floated on
Over the calm floor of the crystal sea,
Among the Ægean isles, and by the
shores

Which bear thy name; love, like the
atmosphere

Of the sun's fire filling the living world,
Burst from thee, and illumined earth

and heaven

And the deep ocean and the sunless

They shall drink the hot speed of

desire !

Asia. Thou breathest on their Hearest thou not sounds i' the air which nostrils, but my breath speak the love Would give them swifter speed.

Of all articulate beings? Feelest thou

Spirit.
Alas! it could not.
Panthea. Oh Spirit! pause, and tell The
whence is the light

Which fills the cloud? the sun is yet
unrisen.

grief cast

Eclipse upon the soul from which it

came :

Such art thou now; nor is it I alone, Thy sister, thy companion, thine own chosen one,

But the whole world which seeks thy sympathy.

not

inanimate winds enamoured of thee? List! (Music.)

Asia. Thy words are sweeter than aught else but his

Whose echoes they are: yet all love is

sweet, Given or returned.

Common as light

is love,

And its familiar voice wearies not ever. Like the wide heaven, the all-sustaining air,

It makes the reptile equal to the God:
They who inspire it most are fortunate,
As I am now; but those who feel it most

The glory and the strength of him ye Of the desire which makes thee one with

serve,

me,

Thetis, bright image of eternity!
When thou didst cry, "Insufferable
might!

God!

Spare me! I sustain not the quick flames,

The penetrating presence; all my being. Like him whom the Numidian seps did thaw

Our antique empire insecure, though Into a dew with poison, is dissolved, Sinking thro' its foundations :" even

built

Rejoice! henceforth I am omnipotent.
All else had been subdued to me; alone
The soul of man, like unextinguished fire,
Yet burns towards heaven with fierce
reproach, and doubt,
And lamentation, and reluctant prayer,
Hurling up insurrection, which might
make

then

On eldest faith, and hell's coeval, fear;
And tho' my curses thro' the pendulous Two mighty spirits, mingling, made a

third

air,

Like snow on herbless peaks, fall flake Mightier than either, which, unbodied

by flake,

now,

And cling to it; tho' under my wrath's Between us floats, felt, although unbenight

held,

It climbs the crags of life, step after step,
Which wound it, as ice wounds un-
sandalled feet,

It yet remains supreme o'er misery,
Aspiring, unrepressed, yet soon to fall:
Even now have I begotten a strange
wonder,

Victory! victory! Feel'st thou not, O
world,

The earthquake of his chariot thunder-
ing up
Olympus?

[The Car of the HOUR arrives.
DEMOGORGON descends, and moves
towards the Throne of JUPITER.
Awful shape, what art thou?
Speak!
Demogorgon. Eternity. Demand no
direr name.

Pour forth heaven's wine, Idæan Gany- Descend, and follow me down the abyss. I am thy child, as thou wert Saturn's child;

mede,

And let it fill the Daedal cups like fire,
And from the flower-inwoven soil divine |
Ye all-triumphant harmonies arise,
As dew from earth under the twilight

Mightier than thee: and we must dwell
together

Henceforth in darkness. Lift thy lightnings not.

stars:

Drink! be the nectar circling thro' your The tyranny of heaven none may retain, veins

Or reassume, or hold, succeeding thee:
Yet if thou wilt, as 'tis the destiny

Of trodden worms to writhe till they are

That fatal child, the terror of the earth, Who waits but till the destined hour arrive,

Bearing from Demogorgon's vacant throne

The dreadful might of ever-living limbs
Which clothed that awful spirit unbeheld,
To redescend, and trample out the spark.

The soul of joy, ye ever-living Gods,
Till exultation burst in one wide voice
Like music from Elysian winds.

Waiting the incarnation, which ascends, (Hear ye the thunder of the fiery wheels Griding the winds?) from Demogorgon's throne.

And thou Ascend beside me, veiled in the light

Even thus beneath the deep Titanian Of the victorious darkness, as he fell: prisons Like the last glare of day's red agony, Which, from a rent among the fiery clouds,

I trample thee! thou lingerest?
Mercy! mercy!
No pity, no release, no respite! Oh,
That thou wouldst make mine enemy
my judge,

Even where he hangs, seared by my
long revenge,

On Caucasus! he would not doom me

Sink with me then, We too will sink on the wide waves of ruin,

Even as a vulture and a snake outspent
Drop, twisted in inextricable fight,
Into a shoreless sea. Let hell unlock
Its mounded oceans of tempestuous fire,
And whelm on them into the bottomless
void

thus.

On Caucasus, his thunder-baffled wings Gentle, and just, and dreadless, is he Entangled in the whirlwind, and his

This desolated world, and thee, and me, The conqueror and the conquered, and the wreck

Of that for which they combated.

not

eyes

The monarch of the world? What then Which gazed on the undazzling sun, now art thou?

blinded

No refuge! no appeal!

Ai! Ai!
The elements obey me not. I sink
Dizzily down, ever, for ever, down.
And, like a cloud, mine enemy above
Darkens my fall with victory! Ai, Ai!

Burns far along the tempest-wrinkled deep.

SCENE II.THE MOUTH OF A GREAT
RIVER IN THE ISLAND ATLANTIS.
OCEAN is discovered reclining near
the Shore; APOLLO stands beside him.
Ocean.

Apollo.

Ocean. He sunk to the abyss? To the dark void?

Apollo. An eagle so caught in some bursting cloud

By the white lightning, while the ponderous hail

Beats

on his struggling form, which
sinks at length

Prone, and the aërial ice clings over it.
Ocean. Henceforth the fields of
Heaven-reflecting sea

Which are my realm, will heave, un-
stained with blood,

Beneath the uplifting winds, like plains of corn

Swayed by the summer air; my streams will flow

Round many-peopled continents, and

The shadow of fair ships, as mortals see
The floating bark of the light-laden moon
With that white star, its sightless pilot's
crest,

Borne down the rapid sunset's ebbing

sea;

He fell, thou sayest, beneath his conqueror's frown?

Tracking their path no more by blood and groans,

Aye, when the strife was And desolation, and the mingled voice. ended which made dim Of slavery and command; but by the

The orb I rule, and shook the solid

stars,

round Fortunate isles; and from their glassy thrones

Blue Proteus and his humid nymphs shall mark

light

Of wave-reflected flowers, and floating

odours,

The terrors of his eye illumined heaven With sanguine light, through the thick And music soft, and mild, free, gentle ragged skirts

voices,