625

Hypocrisy and custom make their minds.
The fanes of many a worship, now outworn.
They dare not devise good for man's estate,
And yet they know not that they do not dare.
The good want power, but to weep barren tears.
The powerful goodness want: worse need for them.
The wise want love; and those who love want wisdom;
And all best things are thus confused to ill.
Many are strong and rich, and would be just,
But live among their suffering fellow-men

As if none felt: they know not what they do.

PROMETHEUS.

Thy words are like a cloud of winged snakes;
And yet I pity those they torture not.

FURY.

Thou pitiest them? I speak no more!

PROMETHEUS.

[Vanishes.

Ah woe!

Ah woe! Alas! pain, pain ever, for ever!
I close my tearless eyes, but see more clear
Thy works within my woe-illumèd mind,
Thou subtle tyrant! Peace is in the grave.
The grave hides all things beautiful and good:
I am a God and cannot find it there,
Nor would I seek it: for, though dread revenge,
This is defeat, fierce king, not victory.

The sights with which thou torturest gird my soul
With new endurance, till the hour arrives

When they shall be no types of things which are.

PANTHEA.

Alas! what sawest thou?

630

635

640

645

PROMETHEUS.

There are two woes:

To speak, and to behold; thou spare me one.
Names are there, Nature's sacred watch-words, they
Were borne aloft in bright emblazonry;
The nations thronged around, and cried aloud,
As with one voice, Truth, liberty, and love!
Suddenly fierce confusion fell from heaven

650

Among them: there was strife, deceit, and fear:
Tyrants rushed in, and did divide the spoil.
This was the shadow of the truth I saw.
THE EARTH.

I felt thy torture, son, with such mixed joy
As pain and virtue give. To cheer thy state
I bid ascend those subtle and fair spirits,

Whose homes are the dim caves of human thought,
And who inhabit, as birds wing the wind,
Its world-surrounding æther: they behold
Beyond that twilight realm, as in a glass,
The future may they speak comfort to thee!
PANTHEA.

Look, sister, where a troop of spirits gather,

655

660

Like flocks of clouds in spring's delightful weather, 665 Thronging in the blue air!

IONE.

And see more come,

Like fountain-vapours when the winds are dumb,
That climb up the ravine in scattered lines.
And, hark is it the music of the pines?

Is it the lake? Is it the waterfall?

PANTHEA.

'Tis something sadder, sweeter far than all.
CHORUS OF SPIRITS.

From unremembered ages we
Gentle guides and guardians be
Of heaven-oppressed mortality;
And we breathe, and sicken not.
The atmosphere of human thought:
Be it dim, and dank, and grey,
Like a storm-extinguished day,
Travelled o'er by dying gleams;
Be it bright as all between
Cloudless skies and windless streams,
Silent, liquid, and serene;

As the birds within the wind,

As the fish within the wave,
As the thoughts of man's own mind
Float thro' all above the grave;

670

675

680

683

We make there our liquid lair,
Voyaging cloudlike and unpent
Thro' the boundless element:
Thence we bear the prophecy
Which begins and ends in thee!
IONE.

More yet come, one by one: the air around them
Looks radiant as the air around a star.

FIRST SPIRIT.

On a battle-trumpet's blast
I fled hither, fast, fast, fast,
'Mid the darkness upward cast.
From the dust of creeds outworn,
From the tyrant's banner torn,
Gathering 'round me, onward borne,
There was mingled many a cry-
Freedom! Hope! Death! Victory!
Till they faded thro' the sky;
And one sound, above, around,
One sound beneath, around, above,

Was moving; 'twas the soul of love;
"Twas the hope, the prophecy,
Which begins and ends in thee.

SECOND SPIRIT.

A rainbow's arch stood on the sea,
Which rocked beneath, immovably;
And the triumphant storm did flee,
Like a conqueror, swift and proud,
Between, with many a captive cloud,
A shapeless, dark and rapid crowd,
Each by lightning riven in half :
I heard the thunder hoarsely laugh:
Mighty fleets were strewn like chaff
And spread beneath a hell of death
O'er the white waters. I alit
On a great ship lightning-split,
And speeded hither on the sigh
Of one who gave an enemy

His plank, then plunged aside to die.

690

695

700

705

710

715

720

THIRD SPIRIT.

I sate beside a sage's bed,

And the lamp was burning red

Near the book where he had fed,

When a Dream with plumes of flame,
To his pillow hovering came,
And I knew it was the same
Which had kindled long ago
Pity, eloquence, and woe;
And the world awhile below
Wore the shade, its lustre made.
It has born me here as fleet
As Desire's lightning feet:

I must ride it back ere morrow,
Or the sage will wake in sorrow.
FOURTH SPIRIT.

On a poet's lips I slept

Dreaming like a love-adept

In the sound his breathing kept;

725

750

735

Nor seeks nor finds he mortal blisses,

749

But feeds on the aërial kisses

Of shapes that haunt thought's wildernesses.

He will watch from dawn to gloom.

The lake-reflected sun illume

The yellow bees in the ivy-bloom,

745

Nor heed nor see, what things they be;
But from these create he can

Forms more real than living man,

Nurslings of immortality!

One of these awakened me,

750

And I sped to succour thee.

IONE.

Behold'st thou not two shapes from the east and west Come, as two doves to one beloved nest,

Twin nurslings of the all-sustaining air

On swift still wings glide down the atmosphere ?
And, hark! their sweet, sad voices! 'tis despair
Mingled with love and then dissolved in sound.

PANTHEA.

Canst thou speak, sister? all my words are drowned.

755

IONE.

Their beauty gives me voice. See how they float
On their sustaining wings of skiey 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.

760

As over wide dominions I sped, like some swift cloud that wings the wide air's

wildernesses,

That planet-crested shape swept by on lightning-braided

pinions,

765

Scattering the liquid joy of life from his 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, un

upbraiding,

Gleamed in the night. I wandered o'er, till thou, O

King of sadness,

770

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,
But treads with killing footstep, and fans with silent wing
The tender hopes which in their hearts the best and

gentlest bear;

775

Who, soothed to false repose by the fanning plumes above And the music-stirring motion of its soft and busy feet, Dream visions of aërial joy, and call the monster, Love, And wake, and find the shadow Pain, as he whom now we greet.

CHORUS.

Tho' Ruin now Love's shadow be,
Following him, destroyingly,

On Death's white and wingèd steed,
Which the fleetest cannot flee,

Trampling down both flower and weed

VOL. I.

2 A

780