PROMETHEUS: They last while Jove must reign: nor more, nor less _415 Do I desire or fear.

MERCURY: Yet pause, and plunge Into Eternity, where recorded time, Even all that we imagine, age on age, Seems but a point, and the reluctant mind Flags wearily in its unending flight, _420 Till it sink, dizzy, blind, lost, shelterless; Perchance it has not numbered the slow years Which thou must spend in torture, unreprieved?

PROMETHEUS: Perchance no thought can count them, yet they pa.s.s.

MERCURY: If thou might'st dwell among the G.o.ds the while Lapped in voluptuous joy? _425

PROMETHEUS: I would not quit This bleak ravine, these unrepentant pains.

MERCURY: Alas! I wonder at, yet pity thee.

PROMETHEUS: Pity the self-despising slaves of Heaven, Not me, within whose mind sits peace serene. _430 As light in the sun, throned: how vain is talk!

Call up the fiends.

IONE: O, sister, look! White fire Has cloven to the roots yon huge snow-loaded cedar; How fearfully G.o.d's thunder howls behind!

MERCURY: I must obey his words and thine: alas! _435 Most heavily remorse hangs at my heart!

PANTHEA: See where the child of Heaven, with winged feet, Runs down the slanted sunlight of the dawn.

IONE: Dear sister, close thy plumes over thine eyes Lest thou behold and die: they come: they come _440 Blackening the birth of day with countless wings, And hollow underneath, like death.

FIRST FURY: Prometheus!

SECOND FURY: Immortal t.i.tan!

THIRD FURY: Champion of Heaven's slaves!

PROMETHEUS: He whom some dreadful voice invokes is here, Prometheus, the chained t.i.tan. Horrible forms, _445 What and who are ye? Never yet there came Phantasms so foul through monster-teeming h.e.l.l From the all-miscreative brain of Jove; Whilst I behold such execrable shapes, Methinks I grow like what I contemplate, _450 And laugh and stare in loathsome sympathy.

FIRST FURY: We are the ministers of pain, and fear, And disappointment, and mistrust, and hate, And clinging crime; and as lean dogs pursue Through wood and lake some struck and sobbing fawn, _455 We track all things that weep, and bleed, and live, When the great King betrays them to our will.

PROMETHEUS: Oh! many fearful natures in one name, I know ye; and these lakes and echoes know The darkness and the clangour of your wings. _460 But why more hideous than your loathed selves Gather ye up in legions from the deep?

SECOND FURY: We knew not that: Sisters, rejoice, rejoice!

PROMETHEUS: Can aught exult in its deformity?

SECOND FURY: The beauty of delight makes lovers glad, _465 Gazing on one another: so are we.

As from the rose which the pale priestess kneels To gather for her festal crown of flowers The aereal crimson falls, flushing her cheek, So from our victim's destined agony _470 The shade which is our form invests us round, Else we are shapeless as our mother Night.

PROMETHEUS: I laugh your power, and his who sent you here, To lowest scorn. Pour forth the cup of pain.

FIRST FURY: Thou thinkest we will rend thee bone from bone, _475 And nerve from nerve, working like fire within?

PROMETHEUS: Pain is my element, as hate is thine; Ye rend me now; I care not.

SECOND FURY: Dost imagine We will but laugh into thy lidless eyes?

PROMETHEUS: I weigh not what ye do, but what ye suffer, _480 Being evil. Cruel was the power which called You, or aught else so wretched, into light.

THIRD FURY: Thou think'st we will live through thee, one by one, Like animal life, and though we can obscure not The soul which burns within, that we will dwell _485 Beside it, like a vain loud mult.i.tude Vexing the self-content of wisest men: That we will be dread thought beneath thy brain, And foul desire round thine astonished heart, And blood within thy labyrinthine veins _490 Crawling like agony?

PROMETHEUS: Why, ye are thus now; Yet am I king over myself, and rule The torturing and conflicting throngs within, As Jove rules you when h.e.l.l grows mutinous.

CHORUS OF FURIES: From the ends of the earth, from the ends of the earth, _495 Where the night has its grave and the morning its birth, Come, come, come!

Oh, ye who shake hills with the scream of your mirth, When cities sink howling in ruin; and ye Who with wingless footsteps trample the sea, _500 And close upon Shipwreck and Famine's track, Sit chattering with joy on the foodless wreck; Come, come, come!

Leave the bed, low, cold, and red, Strewed beneath a nation dead; _505 Leave the hatred, as in ashes Fire is left for future burning: It will burst in bloodier flashes When ye stir it, soon returning: Leave the self-contempt implanted _510 In young spirits, sense-enchanted, Misery's yet unkindled fuel: Leave h.e.l.l's secrets half unchanted To the maniac dreamer; cruel More than ye can be with hate _515 Is he with fear.

Come, come, come!

We are steaming up from h.e.l.l's wide gate And we burthen the blast of the atmosphere, But vainly we toil till ye come here. _520

IONE: Sister, I hear the thunder of new wings.

PANTHEA: These solid mountains quiver with the sound Even as the tremulous air: their shadows make The s.p.a.ce within my plumes more black than night.

FIRST FURY: Your call was as a winged car, _525 Driven on whirlwinds fast and far; It rapped us from red gulfs of war.

SECOND FURY: From wide cities, famine-wasted;

THIRD FURY: Groans half heard, and blood untasted;

FOURTH FURY: Kingly conclaves stern and cold, _530 Where blood with gold is bought and sold;

FIFTH FURY: From the furnace, white and hot, In which--

A FURY: Speak not: whisper not: I know all that ye would tell, But to speak might break the spell _535 Which must bend the Invincible, The stern of thought; He yet defies the deepest power of h.e.l.l.

FURY: Tear the veil!

ANOTHER FURY: It is torn.

CHORUS: The pale stars of the morn Shine on a misery, dire to be borne. _540 Dost thou faint, mighty t.i.tan? We laugh thee to scorn.

Dost thou boast the clear knowledge thou waken'dst for man?

Then was kindled within him a thirst which outran Those perishing waters; a thirst of fierce fever, Hope, love, doubt, desire, which consume him for ever. _545 One came forth of gentle worth Smiling on the sanguine earth; His words outlived him, like swift poison Withering up truth, peace, and pity.

Look! where round the wide horizon _550 Many a million-peopled city Vomits smoke in the bright air.

Mark that outcry of despair!

'Tis his mild and gentle ghost Wailing for the faith he kindled: _555 Look again, the flames almost To a glow-worm's lamp have dwindled: The survivors round the embers Gather in dread.

Joy, joy, joy! _560 Past ages crowd on thee, but each one remembers, And the future is dark, and the present is spread Like a pillow of thorns for thy slumberless head.

NOTE: _553 Hark B; Mark 1820.

SEMICHORUS 1: Drops of b.l.o.o.d.y agony flow From his white and quivering brow. _565 Grant a little respite now: See a disenchanted nation Springs like day from desolation; To Truth its state is dedicate, And Freedom leads it forth, her mate; _570 A legioned band of linked brothers Whom Love calls children--

SEMICHORUS 2: 'Tis another's: See how kindred murder kin: 'Tis the vintage-time for death and sin: Blood, like new wine, bubbles within: _575 Till Despair smothers The struggling world, which slaves and tyrants win.

[ALL THE FURIES VANISH, EXCEPT ONE.]

IONE: Hark, sister! what a low yet dreadful groan Quite unsuppressed is tearing up the heart Of the good t.i.tan, as storms tear the deep, _580 And beasts hear the sea moan in inland caves.

Darest thou observe how the fiends torture him?