Act 1…

Act 1

SCENE: A RAVINE OF ICY ROCKS IN THE INDIAN CAUCASUS. PROMETHEUS IS DISCOVERED BOUND TO THE PRECIPICE. PANTHEA AND IONE ARE SEATED AT HIS FEET. TIME, NIGHT. DURING, THE SCENE MORNING SLOWLY BREAKS.

PROMETHEUS: Monarch of Gods and DAEmons, and all Spirits But One, who throng those bright and rolling worlds Which Thou and I alone of living things Behold with sleepless eyes! regard this Earth Made multitudinous with thy slaves, whom thou _5 Requitest for knee-worship, prayer, and praise, And toil, and hecatombs of broken hearts, With fear and self-contempt and barren hope. Whilst me, who am thy foe, eyeless in hate, Hast thou made reign and triumph, to thy scorn, _10 O’er mine own misery and thy vain revenge. Three thousand years of sleep-unsheltered hours, And moments aye divided by keen pangs Till they seemed years, torture and solitude, Scorn and despair,—these are mine empire:— _15 More glorious far than that which thou surveyest From thine unenvied throne, O Mighty God! Almighty, had I deigned to share the shame Of thine ill tyranny, and hung not here Nailed to this wall of eagle-baffling mountain, _20 Black, wintry, dead, unmeasured; without herb, Insect, or beast, or shape or sound of life. Ah me! alas, pain, pain ever, for ever!

No change, no pause, no hope! Yet I endure. I ask the Earth, have not the mountains felt? _25 I ask yon Heaven, the all-beholding Sun, Has it not seen? The Sea, in storm or calm, Heaven’s ever-changing Shadow, spread below, Have its deaf waves not heard my agony? Ah me! alas, pain, pain ever, for ever! _30

The crawling glaciers pierce me with the spears Of their moon-freezing crystals; the bright chains Eat with their burning cold into my bones. Heaven’s winged hound, polluting from thy lips His beak in poison not his own, tears up _35 My heart; and shapeless sights come wandering by, The ghastly people of the realm of dream, Mocking me: and the Earthquake-fiends are charged To wrench the rivets from my quivering wounds When the rocks split and close again behind: _40 While from their loud abysses howling throng The genii of the storm, urging the rage Of whirlwind, and afflict me with keen hail. And yet to me welcome is day and night, Whether one breaks the hoar-frost of the morn, _45 Or starry, dim, and slow, the other climbs The leaden-coloured east; for then they lead The wingless, crawling hours, one among whom —As some dark Priest hales the reluctant victim— Shall drag thee, cruel King, to kiss the blood _50 From these pale feet, which then might trample thee If they disdained not such a prostrate slave. Disdain! Ah, no! I pity thee. What ruin Will hunt thee undefended through wide Heaven! How will thy soul, cloven to its depth with terror, _55 Gape like a hell within! I speak in grief, Not exultation, for I hate no more, As then ere misery made me wise. The curse Once breathed on thee I would recall. Ye Mountains, Whose many-voiced Echoes, through the mist _60 Of cataracts, flung the thunder of that spell! Ye icy Springs, stagnant with wrinkling frost, Which vibrated to hear me, and then crept Shuddering through India! Thou serenest Air, Through which the Sun walks burning without beams! _65 And ye swift Whirlwinds, who on poised wings Hung mute and moveless o’er yon hushed abyss, As thunder, louder than your own, made rock The orbed world! If then my words had power, Though I am changed so that aught evil wish _70 Is dead within; although no memory be Of what is hate, let them not lose it now! What was that curse? for ye all heard me speak.

NOTE: _54 thro’ wide B; thro’ the wide 1820.

FIRST VOICE (FROM THE MOUNTAINS): Thrice three hundred thousand years O’er the Earthquake’s couch we stood: _75 Oft, as men convulsed with fears, We trembled in our multitude.

SECOND VOICE (FROM THE SPRINGS): Thunderbolts had parched our water, We had been stained with bitter blood, And had run mute, ‘mid shrieks of slaughter, _80 Thro’ a city and a solitude.

THIRD VOICE (FROM THE AIR): I had clothed, since Earth uprose, Its wastes in colours not their own, And oft had my serene repose Been cloven by many a rending groan. _85

FOURTH VOICE (FROM THE WHIRLWINDS): We had soared beneath these mountains Unresting ages; nor had thunder, Nor yon volcano’s flaming fountains, Nor any power above or under Ever made us mute with wonder. _90

FIRST VOICE: But never bowed our snowy crest As at the voice of thine unrest.

SECOND VOICE: Never such a sound before To the Indian waves we bore. A pilot asleep on the howling sea _95 Leaped up from the deck in agony, And heard, and cried, ‘Ah, woe is me!’ And died as mad as the wild waves be.

THIRD VOICE: By such dread words from Earth to Heaven My still realm was never riven: _100 When its wound was closed, there stood Darkness o’er the day like blood.

FOURTH VOICE: And we shrank back: for dreams of ruin To frozen caves our flight pursuing Made us keep silence—thus—and thus— _105 Though silence is a hell to us.

THE EARTH: The tongueless caverns of the craggy hills Cried, ‘Misery!’ then; the hollow Heaven replied, ‘Misery!’ And the Ocean’s purple waves, Climbing the land, howled to the lashing winds, _110 And the pale nations heard it, ‘Misery!’

NOTE: _106 as hell 1839, B; a hell 1820.

PROMETHEUS: I hear a sound of voices: not the voice Which I gave forth. Mother, thy sons and thou Scorn him, without whose all-enduring will Beneath the fierce omnipotence of Jove, _115 Both they and thou had vanished, like thin mist Unrolled on the morning wind. Know ye not me, The Titan? He who made his agony The barrier to your else all-conquering foe? Oh, rock-embosomed lawns, and snow-fed streams, _120 Now seen athwart frore vapours, deep below, Through whose o’ershadowing woods I wandered once With Asia, drinking life from her loved eyes; Why scorns the spirit which informs ye, now To commune with me? me alone, who checked, _125 As one who checks a fiend-drawn charioteer, The falsehood and the force of him who reigns Supreme, and with the groans of pining slaves Fills your dim glens and liquid wildernesses: Why answer ye not, still? Brethren!

THE EARTH: They dare not. _130

PROMETHEUS: Who dares? for I would hear that curse again. Ha, what an awful whisper rises up! ’Tis scarce like sound: it tingles through the frame As lightning tingles, hovering ere it strike. Speak, Spirit! from thine inorganic voice _135 I only know that thou art moving near And love. How cursed I him?

THE EARTH: How canst thou hear Who knowest not the language of the dead?

PROMETHEUS: Thou art a living spirit; speak as they.

THE EARTH: I dare not speak like life, lest Heaven’s fell King _140 Should hear, and link me to some wheel of pain More torturing than the one whereon I roll. Subtle thou art and good; and though the Gods Hear not this voice, yet thou art more than God, Being wise and kind: earnestly hearken now. _145

PROMETHEUS: Obscurely through my brain, like shadows dim, Sweep awful thoughts, rapid and thick. I feel Faint, like one mingled in entwining love; Yet ’tis not pleasure.

THE EARTH: No, thou canst not hear: Thou art immortal, and this tongue is known _150 Only to those who die.

PROMETHEUS: And what art thou, O, melancholy Voice?

THE EARTH: I am the Earth, Thy mother; she within whose stony veins, To the last fibre of the loftiest tree Whose thin leaves trembled in the frozen air, _155 Joy ran, as blood within a living frame, When thou didst from her bosom, like a cloud Of glory, arise, a spirit of keen joy! And at thy voice her pining sons uplifted Their prostrate brows from the polluting dust, _160 And our almighty Tyrant with fierce dread Grew pale, until his thunder chained thee here. Then, see those million worlds which burn and roll Around us: their inhabitants beheld My sphered light wane in wide Heaven; the sea _165 Was lifted by strange tempest, and new fire From earthquake-rifted mountains of bright snow Shook its portentous hair beneath Heaven’s frown; Lightning and Inundation vexed the plains; Blue thistles bloomed in cities; foodless toads _170 Within voluptuous chambers panting crawled: When Plague had fallen on man, and beast, and worm, And Famine; and black blight on herb and tree; And in the corn, and vines, and meadow-grass, Teemed ineradicable poisonous weeds _175 Draining their growth, for my wan breast was dry With grief; and the thin air, my breath, was stained With the contagion of a mother’s hate Breathed on her child’s destroyer; ay, I heard Thy curse, the which, if thou rememberest not, _180 Yet my innumerable seas and streams, Mountains, and caves, and winds, and yon wide air, And the inarticulate people of the dead, Preserve, a treasured spell. We meditate In secret joy and hope those dreadful words, _185 But dare not speak them.

NOTE: _137 And love 1820; And lovest cj. Swinburne.

PROMETHEUS: Venerable mother! All else who live and suffer take from thee Some comfort; flowers, and fruits, and happy sounds, And love, though fleeting; these may not be mine. But mine own words, I pray, deny me not. _190

THE EARTH: They shall be told. Ere Babylon was dust, The Magus Zoroaster, my dead child, Met his own image walking in the garden. That apparition, sole of men, he saw. For know there are two worlds of life and death: _195 One that which thou beholdest; but the other Is underneath the grave, where do inhabit The shadows of all forms that think and live Till death unite them and they part no more; Dreams and the light imaginings of men, _200 And all that faith creates or love desires, Terrible, strange, sublime and beauteous shapes. There thou art, and dost hang, a writhing shade, ‘Mid whirlwind-peopled mountains; all the gods Are there, and all the powers of nameless worlds, _205 Vast, sceptred phantoms; heroes, men, and beasts; And Demogorgon, a tremendous gloom; And he, the supreme Tyrant, on his throne Of burning gold. Son, one of these shall utter The curse which all remember. Call at will _210 Thine own ghost, or the ghost of Jupiter, Hades or Typhon, or what mightier Gods From all-prolific Evil, since thy ruin, Have sprung, and trampled on my prostrate sons. Ask, and they must reply: so the revenge _215 Of the Supreme may sweep through vacant shades, As rainy wind through the abandoned gate Of a fallen palace.

PROMETHEUS: Mother, let not aught Of that which may be evil, pass again My lips, or those of aught resembling me. _220 Phantasm of Jupiter, arise, appear!

IONE: My wings are folded o’er mine ears: My wings are crossed o’er mine eyes: Yet through their silver shade appears, And through their lulling plumes arise, _225 A Shape, a throng of sounds; May it be no ill to thee O thou of many wounds! Near whom, for our sweet sister’s sake, Ever thus we watch and wake. _230

PANTHEA: The sound is of whirlwind underground, Earthquake, and fire, and mountains cloven; The shape is awful like the sound, Clothed in dark purple, star-inwoven. A sceptre of pale gold _235 To stay steps proud, o’er the slow cloud His veined hand doth hold. Cruel he looks, but calm and strong, Like one who does, not suffers wrong.

PHANTASM OF JUPITER: Why have the secret powers of this strange world _240 Driven me, a frail and empty phantom, hither On direst storms? What unaccustomed sounds Are hovering on my lips, unlike the voice With which our pallid race hold ghastly talk In darkness? And, proud sufferer, who art thou? _245

PROMETHEUS: Tremendous Image, as thou art must be He whom thou shadowest forth. I am his foe, The Titan. Speak the words which I would hear, Although no thought inform thine empty voice.

THE EARTH: Listen! And though your echoes must be mute, _250 Grey mountains, and old woods, and haunted springs, Prophetic caves, and isle-surrounding streams, Rejoice to hear what yet ye cannot speak.

PHANTASM: A spirit seizes me and speaks within: It tears me as fire tears a thunder-cloud. _255

PANTHEA: See, how he lifts his mighty looks, the Heaven Darkens above.

IONE: He speaks! O shelter me!

PROMETHEUS: I see the curse on gestures proud and cold, And looks of firm defiance, and calm hate, And such despair as mocks itself with smiles, _260 Written as on a scroll: yet speak! Oh, speak!

PHANTASM: Fiend, I defy thee! with a calm, fixed mind, All that thou canst inflict I bid thee do; Foul Tyrant both of Gods and Humankind, One only being shalt thou not subdue. _265 Rain then thy plagues upon me here, Ghastly disease, and frenzying fear; And let alternate frost and fire Eat into me, and be thine ire Lightning, and cutting hail, and legioned forms _270 Of furies, driving by upon the wounding storms.

Ay, do thy worst. Thou art omnipotent. O’er all things but thyself I gave thee power, And my own will. Be thy swift mischiefs sent To blast mankind, from yon ethereal tower. _275 Let thy malignant spirit move In darkness over those I love: On me and mine I imprecate The utmost torture of thy hate; And thus devote to sleepless agony, _280 This undeclining head while thou must reign on high.

But thou, who art the God and Lord: O, thou, Who fillest with thy soul this world of woe, To whom all things of Earth and Heaven do bow In fear and worship: all-prevailing foe! _285 I curse thee! let a sufferer’s curse Clasp thee, his torturer, like remorse; Till thine Infinity shall be A robe of envenomed agony; And thine Omnipotence a crown of pain, _290 To cling like burning gold round thy dissolving brain.

Heap on thy soul, by virtue of this Curse, Ill deeds, then be thou damned, beholding good; Both infinite as is the universe, And thou, and thy self-torturing solitude. _295 An awful image of calm power Though now thou sittest, let the hour Come, when thou must appear to be That which thou art internally; And after many a false and fruitless crime _300 Scorn track thy lagging fall through boundless space and time.

PROMETHEUS: Were these my words, O Parent?

THE EARTH: They were thine.

PROMETHEUS: It doth repent me: words are quick and vain; Grief for awhile is blind, and so was mine. I wish no living thing to suffer pain. _305

THE EARTH: Misery, Oh misery to me, That Jove at length should vanquish thee. Wail, howl aloud, Land and Sea, The Earth’s rent heart shall answer ye. Howl, Spirits of the living and the dead, _310 Your refuge, your defence, lies fallen and vanquished.

FIRST ECHO: Lies fallen and vanquished!

SECOND ECHO: Fallen and vanquished!

IONE: Fear not: ’tis but some passing spasm, The Titan is unvanquished still. _315 But see, where through the azure chasm Of yon forked and snowy hill Trampling the slant winds on high With golden-sandalled feet, that glow Under plumes of purple dye, _320 Like rose-ensanguined ivory, A Shape comes now, Stretching on high from his right hand A serpent-cinctured wand.

PANTHEA: ’Tis Jove’s world-wandering herald, Mercury. _325

IONE: And who are those with hydra tresses And iron wings that climb the wind, Whom the frowning God represses Like vapours steaming up behind, Clanging loud, an endless crowd— _330

PANTHEA: These are Jove’s tempest-walking hounds, Whom he gluts with groans and blood, When charioted on sulphurous cloud He bursts Heaven’s bounds.

IONE: Are they now led, from the thin dead _335 On new pangs to be fed?

PANTHEA: The Titan looks as ever, firm, not proud.

FIRST FURY: Ha! I scent life!

SECOND FURY: Let me but look into his eyes!

THIRD FURY: The hope of torturing him smells like a heap Of corpses, to a death-bird after battle. _340

FIRST FURY: Darest thou delay, O Herald! take cheer, Hounds Of Hell: what if the Son of Maia soon Should make us food and sport—who can please long The Omnipotent?

MERCURY: Back to your towers of iron, And gnash, beside the streams of fire and wail, _345 Your foodless teeth. Geryon, arise! and Gorgon, Chimaera, and thou Sphinx, subtlest of fiends Who ministered to Thebes Heaven’s poisoned wine, Unnatural love, and more unnatural hate: These shall perform your task.

FIRST FURY: Oh, mercy! mercy! _350 We die with our desire: drive us not back!

MERCURY: Crouch then in silence. Awful Sufferer! To thee unwilling, most unwillingly I come, by the great Father’s will driven down, To execute a doom of new revenge. _355 Alas! I pity thee, and hate myself That I can do no more: aye from thy sight Returning, for a season, Heaven seems Hell, So thy worn form pursues me night and day, Smiling reproach. Wise art thou, firm and good, _360 But vainly wouldst stand forth alone in strife Against the Omnipotent; as yon clear lamps That measure and divide the weary years From which there is no refuge, long have taught And long must teach. Even now thy Torturer arms _365 With the strange might of unimagined pains The powers who scheme slow agonies in Hell, And my commission is to lead them here, Or what more subtle, foul, or savage fiends People the abyss, and leave them to their task. _370 Be it not so! there is a secret known To thee, and to none else of living things, Which may transfer the sceptre of wide Heaven, The fear of which perplexes the Supreme: Clothe it in words, and bid it clasp his throne _375 In intercession; bend thy soul in prayer, And like a suppliant in some gorgeous fane, Let the will kneel within thy haughty heart: For benefits and meek submission tame The fiercest and the mightiest.

PROMETHEUS: Evil minds _380 Change good to their own nature. I gave all He has; and in return he chains me here Years, ages, night and day: whether the Sun Split my parched skin, or in the moony night The crystal-winged snow cling round my hair: _385 Whilst my beloved race is trampled down By his thought-executing ministers. Such is the tyrant’s recompense: ’tis just: He who is evil can receive no good; And for a world bestowed, or a friend lost, _390 He can feel hate, fear, shame; not gratitude: He but requites me for his own misdeed. Kindness to such is keen reproach, which breaks With bitter stings the light sleep of Revenge. Submission, thou dost know I cannot try: _395 For what submission but that fatal word, The death-seal of mankind’s captivity, Like the Sicilian’s hair-suspended sword, Which trembles o’er his crown, would he accept, Or could I yield? Which yet I will not yield. _400 Let others flatter Crime, where it sits throned In brief Omnipotence: secure are they: For Justice, when triumphant, will weep down Pity, not punishment, on her own wrongs, Too much avenged by those who err. I wait, _405 Enduring thus, the retributive hour Which since we spake is even nearer now. But hark, the hell-hounds clamour: fear delay: Behold! Heaven lowers under thy Father’s frown.

MERCURY: Oh, that we might be spared; I to inflict _410 And thou to suffer! Once more answer me: Thou knowest not the period of Jove’s power?

PROMETHEUS: I know but this, that it must come.

MERCURY: Alas! Thou canst not count thy years to come of pain?

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 pass.

MERCURY: If thou might’st dwell among the Gods 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 God’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 Titan!

THIRD FURY: Champion of Heaven’s slaves!

PROMETHEUS: He whom some dreadful voice invokes is here, Prometheus, the chained Titan. Horrible forms, _445 What and who are ye? Never yet there came Phantasms so foul through monster-teeming Hell 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 multitude 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 Hell 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 Hell’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 Hell’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 space 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 Hell.

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 Titan? 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 bloody 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 Titan, as storms tear the deep, _580 And beasts hear the sea moan in inland caves. Darest thou observe how the fiends torture him?

PANTHEA: Alas! I looked forth twice, but will no more.

IONE: What didst thou see?

PANTHEA: A woful sight: a youth With patient looks nailed to a crucifix. _585

IONE: What next?

PANTHEA: The heaven around, the earth below Was peopled with thick shapes of human death, All horrible, and wrought by human hands, And some appeared the work of human hearts, For men were slowly killed by frowns and smiles: _590 And other sights too foul to speak and live Were wandering by. Let us not tempt worse fear By looking forth: those groans are grief enough.

NOTE: _589 And 1820; Tho’ B.

FURY: Behold an emblem: those who do endure Deep wrongs for man, and scorn, and chains, but heap _595 Thousand-fold torment on themselves and him.

PROMETHEUS: Remit the anguish of that lighted stare; Close those wan lips; let that thorn-wounded brow Stream not with blood; it mingles with thy tears! Fix, fix those tortured orbs in peace and death, _600 So thy sick throes shake not that crucifix, So those pale fingers play not with thy gore. O, horrible! Thy name I will not speak, It hath become a curse. I see, I see The wise, the mild, the lofty, and the just, _605 Whom thy slaves hate for being like to thee, Some hunted by foul lies from their heart’s home, An early-chosen, late-lamented home; As hooded ounces cling to the driven hind; Some linked to corpses in unwholesome cells: _610 Some—Hear I not the multitude laugh loud?— Impaled in lingering fire: and mighty realms Float by my feet, like sea-uprooted isles, Whose sons are kneaded down in common blood By the red light of their own burning homes. _615

FURY: Blood thou canst see, and fire; and canst hear groans; Worse things unheard, unseen, remain behind.

PROMETHEUS: Worse?

FURY: In each human heart terror survives The ravin it has gorged: the loftiest fear All that they would disdain to think were true: _620 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. _625 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 _630 As if none felt: they know not what they do.

NOTE: _619 ravin B, edition 1839; ruin 1820.

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! [VANISHES.]

PROMETHEUS: Ah woe! Ah woe! Alas! pain, pain ever, for ever! _635 I close my tearless eyes, but see more clear Thy works within my woe-illumed 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, _640 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. _645

PANTHEA: Alas! what sawest thou more?

NOTE: _646 thou more? B; thou? 1820.

PROMETHEUS: There are two woes: To speak, and to behold; thou spare me one. Names are there, Nature’s sacred watchwords, they Were borne aloft in bright emblazonry; The nations thronged around, and cried aloud, _650 As with one voice, Truth, liberty, and love! Suddenly fierce confusion fell from heaven 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. _655

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, _660 Its world-surrounding aether: 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, 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? _670

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, _675 The atmosphere of human thought: Be it dim, and dank, and gray, Like a storm-extinguished day, Travelled o’er by dying gleams; Be it bright as all between _680 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 _685 Float through all above the grave; We make there our liquid lair, Voyaging cloudlike and unpent Through the boundless element: Thence we bear the prophecy _690 Which begins and ends in thee!

NOTE: _687 there B, edition 1839; these 1820.

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, _695 ‘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— _700 Freedom! Hope! Death! Victory! Till they faded through the sky; And one sound, above, around, One sound beneath, around, above, Was moving; ’twas the soul of Love; _705 ’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, _710 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: _715 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 _720 Of one who gave an enemy His plank, then plunged aside to die.

THIRD SPIRIT: I sate beside a sage’s bed, And the lamp was burning red Near the book where he had fed, _725 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; _730 And the world awhile below Wore the shade, its lustre made. It has borne me here as fleet As Desire’s lightning feet: I must ride it back ere morrow, _735 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; Nor seeks nor finds he mortal blisses, _740 But feeds on the aereal 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? _755 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.

IONE: Their beauty gives me voice. See how they float On their sustaining wings of skiey grain, _760 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, 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 passed ’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, _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 lulling 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 aereal joy, and call the monster, Love, And wake, and find the shadow Pain, as he whom now we greet.

NOTE: _774 lulling B; silent 1820.

CHORUS: Though Ruin now Love’s shadow be, _780 Following him, destroyingly, On Death’s white and winged steed, Which the fleetest cannot flee, Trampling down both flower and weed, Man and beast, and foul and fair, _785 Like a tempest through the air; Thou shalt quell this horseman grim, Woundless though in heart or limb.

PROMETHEUS: Spirits! how know ye this shall be?

CHORUS: In the atmosphere we breathe, _790 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 the white-thorn soon will blow: _795 Wisdom, Justice, Love, and Peace, When they struggle to increase, Are to us as soft winds be To shepherd boys, the prophecy Which begins and ends in thee. _800

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 through the deep and labyrinthine soul, _805 Like echoes through long caverns, wind and roll.

PROMETHEUS: How fair these airborn shapes! and yet I feel Most vain all hope but love; and thou art far, Asia! who, when my being overflowed, Wert like a golden chalice to bright wine _810 Which else had sunk into the thirsty dust. All things are still: alas! how heavily This quiet morning weighs upon my heart; Though I should dream I could even sleep with grief If slumber were denied not. I would fain _815 Be what it is my destiny to be, The saviour and the strength of suffering man, Or sink into the original gulf of things: There is no agony, and no solace left; Earth can console, Heaven can torment no more. _820

PANTHEA: Hast thou forgotten one who watches thee The cold dark night, and never sleeps but when The shadow of thy spirit falls on her?

PROMETHEUS: I said all hope was vain but love: thou lovest.

PANTHEA: Deeply in truth; but the eastern star looks white, _825 And Asia waits in that far Indian vale, The scene of her sad exile; rugged once And desolate and frozen, like this ravine; But now invested with fair flowers and herbs, And haunted by sweet airs and sounds, which flow _830 Among the woods and waters, from the aether Of her transforming presence, which would fade If it were mingled not with thine. Farewell!

END OF ACT 1.

Act 2, Scene 1 — MORNING. A LOVELY VALE IN THE INDIAN CAUCASUS. ASIA, ALONE

ASIA: From all the blasts of heaven thou hast descended: Yes, like a spirit, like a thought, which makes Unwonted tears throng to the horny eyes, And beatings haunt the desolated heart, Which should have learnt repose: thou hast descended _5 Cradled in tempests; thou dost wake, O Spring! O child of many winds! As suddenly Thou comest as the memory of a dream, Which now is sad because it hath been sweet; Like genius, or like joy which riseth up _10 As from the earth, clothing with golden clouds The desert of our life. This is the season, this the day, the hour; At sunrise thou shouldst come, sweet sister mine, Too long desired, too long delaying, come! _15 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: through a chasm Of wind-divided mist the darker lake _20 Reflects it: now it wanes: it gleams again As the waves fade, and as the burning threads Of woven cloud unravel in pale air: ’Tis lost! and through yon peaks of cloud-like snow The roseate sunlight quivers: hear I not _25 The Aeolian music of her sea-green plumes Winnowing the crimson dawn?

PANTHEA [ENTERS]: I feel, I see Those eyes which burn through smiles that fade in tears, Like stars half quenched in mists of silver dew. Beloved and most beautiful, who wearest _30 The shadow of that soul by which I live, How late thou art! the sphered sun had climbed The sea; my heart was sick with hope, before The printless air felt thy belated plumes.

PANTHEA: Pardon, great Sister! but my wings were faint _35 With the delight of a remembered dream, As are the noontide plumes of summer winds Satiate with sweet flowers. I was wont to sleep Peacefully, and awake refreshed and calm Before the sacred Titan’s fall, and thy _40 Unhappy love, had made, through use and pity, Both love and woe familiar to my heart As they had grown to thine: erewhile I slept Under the glaucous caverns of old Ocean Within dim bowers of green and purple moss, _45 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 _50 Which fails beneath the music that I bear Of thy most wordless converse; since dissolved Into the sense with which love talks, my rest Was troubled and yet sweet; my waking hours Too full of care and pain.

ASIA: Lift up thine eyes, _55 And let me read thy dream.

PANTHEA: As I have said With our sea-sister at his feet I slept. The mountain mists, condensing at our voice Under the moon, had spread their snowy flakes, From the keen ice shielding our linked sleep. _60 Then two dreams came. One, I remember not. But in the other his pale wound-worn limbs Fell from Prometheus, and the azure night Grew radiant with the glory of that form Which lives unchanged within, and his voice fell _65 Like music which makes giddy the dim brain, Faint with intoxication of keen joy: ‘Sister of her whose footsteps pave the world With loveliness—more fair than aught but her, Whose shadow thou art—lift thine eyes on me.’ _70 I lifted them: the overpowering light Of that immortal shape was shadowed o’er By love; which, from his soft and flowing limbs, And passion-parted lips, and keen, faint eyes, Steamed forth like vaporous fire; an atmosphere _75 Which wrapped me in its all-dissolving power, As the warm ether of the morning sun Wraps ere it drinks some cloud of wandering dew. I saw not, heard not, moved not, only felt His presence flow and mingle through my blood _80 Till it became his life, and his grew mine, And I was thus absorbed, until it passed, And like the vapours when the sun sinks down, Gathering again in drops upon the pines, And tremulous as they, in the deep night _85 My being was condensed; and as the rays Of thought were slowly gathered, I could hear His voice, whose accents lingered ere they died Like footsteps of weak melody: thy name Among the many sounds alone I heard _90 Of what might be articulate; though still I listened through the night when sound was none. Ione wakened then, and said to me: ‘Canst thou divine what troubles me to-night? I always knew, what I desired before, _95 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, _100 Whose spells have stolen my spirit as I slept And mingled it with thine: for when just now We kissed, I felt within thy parted lips The sweet air that sustained me, and the warmth Of the life-blood, for loss of which I faint, _105 Quivered between our intertwining arms.’ I answered not, for the Eastern star grew pale, But fled to thee.

ASIA: Thou speakest, but thy words Are as the air: I feel them not: Oh, lift Thine eyes, that I may read his written soul! _110

PANTHEA: I lift them though they droop beneath the load Of that they would express: what canst thou see But thine own fairest shadow imaged there?

ASIA: Thine eyes are like the deep, blue, boundless heaven Contracted to two circles underneath _115 Their long, fine lashes; dark, far, measureless, Orb within orb, and line through line inwoven.

PANTHEA: Why lookest thou as if a spirit passed?

ASIA: There is a change: beyond their inmost depth I see a shade, a shape: ’tis He, arrayed _120 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 _125 Shall build o’er the waste world? The dream is told. What shape is that between us? Its rude hair Roughens the wind that lifts it, its regard Is wild and quick, yet ’tis a thing of air, For through its gray robe gleams the golden dew _130 Whose stars the noon has quenched not.

NOTE: _122 moon B; morn 1820. _126 o’er B; on 1820.

DREAM Follow! Follow!

PANTHEA: It is mine other dream.

ASIA: It disappears.

PANTHEA: It passes now into my mind. Methought As we sate here, the flower-infolding buds Burst on yon lightning-blasted almond tree, _135 When swift from the white Scythian wilderness A wind swept forth wrinkling the Earth with frost: I looked, and all the blossoms were blown down; But on each leaf was stamped, as the blue bells Of Hyacinth tell Apollo’s written grief, _140 O, FOLLOW, FOLLOW!

ASIA: As you speak, your words Fill, pause by pause, my own forgotten sleep With shapes. Methought among these lawns together We wandered, underneath the young gray dawn, And multitudes of dense white fleecy clouds _145 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: _150 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; _155 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, FOLLOW ME! And then I said, ‘Panthea, look on me.’ _160 But in the depth of those beloved eyes Still I saw, FOLLOW, FOLLOW!

NOTE: _143 these B; the 1820.

ECHO: Follow, follow!

PANTHEA: The crags, this clear spring morning, mock our voices As they were spirit-tongued.

ASIA: It is some being Around the crags. What fine clear sounds! O, list! _165

ECHOES, UNSEEN: Echoes we: listen! We cannot stay: As dew-stars glisten Then fade away— Child of Ocean! _170

ASIA: Hark! Spirits speak. The liquid responses Of their aereal tongues yet sound.

PANTHEA: I hear.

ECHOES: Oh, follow, follow, As our voice recedeth Through the caverns hollow, _175 Where the forest spreadeth; [MORE DISTANT.] Oh, follow, follow! Through the caverns hollow, As the song floats thou pursue, Where the wild bee never flew, _180 Through the noontide darkness deep, By the odour-breathing sleep Of faint night-flowers, and the waves At the fountain-lighted caves, While our music, wild and sweet, _185 Mocks thy gently falling feet, Child of Ocean!

ASIA: Shall we pursue the sound? It grows more faint And distant.

PANTHEA: List! the strain floats nearer now.

ECHOES: In the world unknown _190 Sleeps a voice unspoken; By thy step alone Can its rest be broken; Child of Ocean!

ASIA: How the notes sink upon the ebbing wind! _195

ECHOES: Oh, follow, follow! Through the caverns hollow, As the song floats thou pursue, By the woodland noontide dew; By the forests, lakes, and fountains, _200 Through the many-folded mountains; To the rents, and gulfs, and chasms, Where the Earth reposed from spasms, On the day when He and thou Parted, to commingle now; _205 Child of Ocean!

ASIA: Come, sweet Panthea, link thy hand in mine, And follow, ere the voices fade away.

SCENE 2.2: A FOREST, INTERMINGLED WITH ROCKS AND CAVERNS. ASIA AND PANTHEA PASS INTO IT. TWO YOUNG FAUNS ARE SITTING ON A ROCK LISTENING.

SEMICHORUS 1 OF SPIRITS: The path through which that lovely twain Have passed, by cedar, pine, and yew, And each dark tree that ever grew, Is curtained out from Heaven’s wide blue; Nor sun, nor moon, nor wind, nor rain, _5 Can pierce its interwoven bowers, Nor aught, save where some cloud of dew, Drifted along the earth-creeping breeze, Between the trunks of the hoar trees, Hangs each a pearl in the pale flowers _10 Of the green laurel, blown anew, And bends, and then fades silently, One frail and fair anemone: Or when some star of many a one That climbs and wanders through steep night, _15 Has found the cleft through which alone Beams fall from high those depths upon Ere it is borne away, away, By the swift Heavens that cannot stay, It scatters drops of golden light, _20 Like lines of rain that ne’er unite: And the gloom divine is all around, And underneath is the mossy ground.

SEMICHORUS 2: There the voluptuous nightingales, Are awake through all the broad noonday. _25 When one with bliss or sadness fails, And through the windless ivy-boughs, Sick with sweet love, droops dying away On its mate’s music-panting bosom; Another from the swinging blossom, _30 Watching to catch the languid close Of the last strain, then lifts on high The wings of the weak melody, Till some new strain of feeling bear The song, and all the woods are mute; _35 When there is heard through the dim air The rush of wings, and rising there Like many a lake-surrounded flute, Sounds overflow the listener’s brain So sweet, that joy is almost pain. _40

NOTE: _38 surrounded B, edition 1839; surrounding 1820.

SEMICHORUS 1: There those enchanted eddies play Of echoes, music-tongued, which draw, By Demogorgon’s mighty law, With melting rapture, or sweet awe, All spirits on that secret way; _45 As inland boats are driven to Ocean Down streams made strong with mountain-thaw: And first there comes a gentle sound To those in talk or slumber bound, And wakes the destined soft emotion,— _50 Attracts, impels them; those who saw Say from the breathing earth behind There steams a plume-uplifting wind Which drives them on their path, while they Believe their own swift wings and feet _55 The sweet desires within obey: And so they float upon their way, Until, still sweet, but loud and strong, The storm of sound is driven along, Sucked up and hurrying: as they fleet _60 Behind, its gathering billows meet And to the fatal mountain bear Like clouds amid the yielding air.

NOTE: _50 destined]destinied 1820.

FIRST FAUN: Canst thou imagine where those spirits live Which make such delicate music in the woods? _65 We haunt within the least frequented caves And closest coverts, and we know these wilds, Yet never meet them, though we hear them oft: Where may they hide themselves?

SECOND FAUN: ’Tis hard to tell; I have heard those more skilled in spirits say, _70 The bubbles, which the enchantment of the sun Sucks from the pale faint water-flowers that pave The oozy bottom of clear lakes and pools, Are the pavilions where such dwell and float Under the green and golden atmosphere _75 Which noontide kindles through the woven leaves; And when these burst, and the thin fiery air, The which they breathed within those lucent domes, Ascends to flow like meteors through the night, They ride on them, and rein their headlong speed, _80 And bow their burning crests, and glide in fire Under the waters of the earth again.

FIRST FAUN: If such live thus, have others other lives, Under pink blossoms or within the bells Of meadow flowers, or folded violets deep, _85 Or on their dying odours, when they die, Or in the sunlight of the sphered dew?

NOTE: _86 on 1820; in B.

SECOND FAUN: Ay, many more which we may well divine. But should we stay to speak, noontide would come, And thwart Silenus find his goats undrawn, _90 And grudge to sing those wise and lovely songs Of Fate, and Chance, and God, and Chaos old, And Love, and the chained Titan’s woful doom, And how he shall be loosed, and make the earth One brotherhood: delightful strains which cheer _95 Our solitary twilights, and which charm To silence the unenvying nightingales.

NOTE: _93 doom B, edition 1839; dooms 1820.

Act 2, Scene 3 — A PINNACLE OF ROCK AMONG MOUNTAINS. ASIA AND PANTHEA

PANTHEA: Hither the sound has borne us—to the realm Of Demogorgon, and the mighty portal, Like a volcano’s meteor-breathing chasm, Whence the oracular vapour is hurled up Which lonely men drink wandering in their youth, _5 And call truth, virtue, love, genius, or joy, That maddening wine of life, whose dregs they drain To deep intoxication; and uplift, Like Maenads who cry loud, Evoe! Evoe! The voice which is contagion to the world. _10

ASIA: Fit throne for such a Power! Magnificent! How glorious art thou, Earth! And if thou be The shadow of some spirit lovelier still, Though evil stain its work, and it should be Like its creation, weak yet beautiful, _15 I could fall down and worship that and thee. Even now my heart adoreth: Wonderful! Look, sister, ere the vapour dim thy brain: Beneath is a wide plain of billowy mist, As a lake, paving in the morning sky, _20 With azure waves which burst in silver light, Some Indian vale. Behold it, rolling on Under the curdling winds, and islanding The peak whereon we stand, midway, around, Encinctured by the dark and blooming forests, _25 Dim twilight-lawns, and stream-illumined caves, And wind-enchanted shapes of wandering mist; And far on high the keen sky-cleaving mountains From icy spires of sun-like radiance fling The dawn, as lifted Ocean’s dazzling spray, _30 From some Atlantic islet scattered up, Spangles the wind with lamp-like water-drops. The vale is girdled with their walls, a howl Of cataracts from their thaw-cloven ravines, Satiates the listening wind, continuous, vast, _35 Awful as silence. Hark! the rushing snow! The sun-awakened avalanche! whose mass, Thrice sifted by the storm, had gathered there Flake after flake, in heaven-defying minds As thought by thought is piled, till some great truth _40 Is loosened, and the nations echo round, Shaken to their roots, as do the mountains now.

NOTE: _26 illumed B; illumined 1820.

PANTHEA: Look how the gusty sea of mist is breaking In crimson foam, even at our feet! it rises As Ocean at the enchantment of the moon _45 Round foodless men wrecked on some oozy isle.

ASIA: The fragments of the cloud are scattered up; The wind that lifts them disentwines my hair; Its billows now sweep o’er mine eyes; my brain Grows dizzy; see’st thou shapes within the mist? _50

NOTE: see’st thou B; I see thin 1820; I see 1839.

PANTHEA: A countenance with beckoning smiles: there burns An azure fire within its golden locks! Another and another: hark! they speak!

SONG OF SPIRITS: To the deep, to the deep, Down, down! _55 Through the shade of sleep, Through the cloudy strife Of Death and of Life; Through the veil and the bar Of things which seem and are _60 Even to the steps of the remotest throne, Down, down!

While the sound whirls around, Down, down! As the fawn draws the hound, _65 As the lightning the vapour, As a weak moth the taper; Death, despair; love, sorrow; Time both; to-day, to-morrow; As steel obeys the spirit of the stone, _70 Down, down!

Through the gray, void abysm, Down, down! Where the air is no prism, And the moon and stars are not, _75 And the cavern-crags wear not The radiance of Heaven, Nor the gloom to Earth given, Where there is One pervading, One alone, Down, down! _80

In the depth of the deep, Down, down! Like veiled lightning asleep, Like the spark nursed in embers, The last look Love remembers, _85 Like a diamond, which shines On the dark wealth of mines, A spell is treasured but for thee alone. Down, down!

We have bound thee, we guide thee; _90 Down, down! With the bright form beside thee; Resist not the weakness, Such strength is in meekness That the Eternal, the Immortal, _95 Must unloose through life’s portal The snake-like Doom coiled underneath his throne By that alone.

Act 2, Scene 4 — THE CAVE OF DEMOGORGON. ASIA AND PANTHEA

PANTHEA: What veiled form sits on that ebon throne?

ASIA: The veil has fallen.

PANTHEA: I see a mighty darkness Filling the seat of power, and rays of gloom Dart round, as light from the meridian sun. —Ungazed upon and shapeless; neither limb, _5 Nor form, nor outline; yet we feel it is A living Spirit.

DEMOGORGON: Ask what thou wouldst know.

ASIA: What canst thou tell?

DEMOGORGON: All things thou dar’st demand.

ASIA: Who made the living world?

DEMOGORGON: God.

ASIA: Who made all That it contains? thought, passion, reason, will, _10 Imagination?

DEMOGORGON: God: Almighty God.

ASIA: Who made that sense which, when the winds of Spring In rarest visitation, or the voice Of one beloved heard in youth alone, Fills the faint eyes with falling tears which dim _15 The radiant looks of unbewailing flowers, And leaves this peopled earth a solitude When it returns no more?

DEMOGORGON: Merciful God.

ASIA: And who made terror, madness, crime, remorse, Which from the links of the great chain of things, _20 To every thought within the mind of man Sway and drag heavily, and each one reels Under the load towards the pit of death; Abandoned hope, and love that turns to hate; And self-contempt, bitterer to drink than blood; _25 Pain, whose unheeded and familiar speech Is howling, and keen shrieks, day after day; And Hell, or the sharp fear of Hell?

DEMOGORGON: He reigns.

ASIA: Utter his name: a world pining in pain Asks but his name: curses shall drag him down. _30

DEMOGORGON: He reigns.

ASIA: I feel, I know it: who?

DEMOGORGON: He reigns.

ASIA: Who reigns? There was the Heaven and Earth at first, And Light and Love; then Saturn, from whose throne Time fell, an envious shadow: such the state Of the earth’s primal spirits beneath his sway, _35 As the calm joy of flowers and living leaves Before the wind or sun has withered them And semivital worms; but he refused The birthright of their being, knowledge, power, The skill which wields the elements, the thought _40 Which pierces this dim universe like light, Self-empire, and the majesty of love; For thirst of which they fainted. Then Prometheus Gave wisdom, which is strength, to Jupiter, And with this law alone, ‘Let man be free,’ _45 Clothed him with the dominion of wide Heaven. To know nor faith, nor love, nor law; to be Omnipotent but friendless is to reign; And Jove now reigned; for on the race of man First famine, and then toil, and then disease, _50 Strife, wounds, and ghastly death unseen before, Fell; and the unseasonable seasons drove With alternating shafts of frost and fire, Their shelterless, pale tribes to mountain caves: And in their desert hearts fierce wants he sent, _55 And mad disquietudes, and shadows idle Of unreal good, which levied mutual war, So ruining the lair wherein they raged. Prometheus saw, and waked the legioned hopes Which sleep within folded Elysian flowers, _60 Nepenthe, Moly, Amaranth, fadeless blooms, That they might hide with thin and rainbow wings The shape of Death; and Love he sent to bind The disunited tendrils of that vine Which bears the wine of life, the human heart; _65 And he tamed fire which, like some beast of prey, Most terrible, but lovely, played beneath The frown of man; and tortured to his will Iron and gold, the slaves and signs of power, And gems and poisons, and all subtlest forms _70 Hidden beneath the mountains and the waves. He gave man speech, and speech created thought, Which is the measure of the universe; And Science struck the thrones of earth and heaven, Which shook, but fell not; and the harmonious mind _75 Poured itself forth in all-prophetic song; And music lifted up the listening spirit Until it walked, exempt from mortal care, Godlike, o’er the clear billows of sweet sound; And human hands first mimicked and then mocked, _80 With moulded limbs more lovely than its own, The human form, till marble grew divine; And mothers, gazing, drank the love men see Reflected in their race, behold, and perish. He told the hidden power of herbs and springs, _85 And Disease drank and slept. Death grew like sleep. He taught the implicated orbits woven Of the wide-wandering stars; and how the sun Changes his lair, and by what secret spell The pale moon is transformed, when her broad eye _90 Gazes not on the interlunar sea: He taught to rule, as life directs the limbs, The tempest-winged chariots of the Ocean, And the Celt knew the Indian. Cities then Were built, and through their snow-like columns flowed _95 The warm winds, and the azure ether shone, And the blue sea and shadowy hills were seen. Such, the alleviations of his state, Prometheus gave to man, for which he hangs Withering in destined pain: but who rains down _100 Evil, the immedicable plague, which, while Man looks on his creation like a God And sees that it is glorious, drives him on, The wreck of his own will, the scorn of earth, The outcast, the abandoned, the alone? _105 Not Jove: while yet his frown shook Heaven ay, when His adversary from adamantine chains Cursed him, he trembled like a slave. Declare Who is his master? Is he too a slave?

NOTE: _100 rains B, edition 1839; reigns 1820.

DEMOGORGON: All spirits are enslaved which serve things evil: _110 Thou knowest if Jupiter be such or no.

ASIA: Whom calledst 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 _115 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 Change? To these All things are subject but eternal Love. _120

ASIA: So much I asked before, and my heart gave The response thou hast given; and of such truths Each to itself must be the oracle. One more demand; and do thou answer me As my own soul would answer, did it know _125 That which I ask. Prometheus shall arise Henceforth the sun of this rejoicing world: When shall the destined hour arrive?

DEMOGORGON: Behold!

ASIA: The rocks are cloven, and through the purple night I see cars drawn by rainbow-winged steeds _130 Which trample the dim winds: in each there stands A wild-eyed charioteer urging their flight. 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 _135 With eager lips the wind of their own speed, As if the thing they loved fled on before, 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, _140 Of whom thou didst demand. One waits for thee.

ASIA: A Spirit with a dreadful countenance Checks its dark chariot by the craggy gulf. Unlike thy brethren, ghastly charioteer, Who art thou? Whither wouldst thou bear me? Speak! _145

SPIRIT: I am the shadow of a destiny More dread than is my aspect: ere yon planet Has 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 _150 Up from its throne, as may the lurid smoke Of earthquake-ruined cities o’er the sea. Lo! it ascends the car; the coursers fly Terrified: watch its path among the stars Blackening the night!

ASIA: Thus I am answered: strange! _155

PANTHEA: See, near the verge, another chariot stays; An ivory shell inlaid with crimson fire, Which comes and goes within its sculptured rim Of delicate strange tracery; the young spirit That guides it has the dove-like eyes of hope; _160 How its soft smiles attract the soul! as light Lures winged insects through the lampless air.

SPIRIT: My coursers are fed with the lightning, They drink of the whirlwind’s stream, And when the red morning is bright’ning _165 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; _170 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 2.5: THE CAR PAUSES WITHIN A CLOUD ON THE TOP OF A SNOWY MOUNTAIN. ASIA, PANTHEA, AND THE SPIRIT OF THE HOUR.

SPIRIT: On the brink of the night and the morning My coursers are wont to respire; But the Earth has just whispered a warning That their flight must be swifter than fire: They shall drink the hot speed of desire! _5

ASIA: Thou breathest on their nostrils, but my breath Would give them swifter speed.

SPIRIT: Alas! it could not.

PANTHEA: Oh Spirit! pause, and tell whence is the light Which fills this cloud? the sun is yet unrisen.

NOTE: _9 this B; the 1820.

SPIRIT: The sun will rise not until noon. Apollo _10 Is held in heaven by wonder; and the light Which fills this vapour, as the aereal 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. _15

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. Some good change Is working in the elements, which suffer Thy presence thus unveiled. The Nereids tell _20 That on the day when the clear hyaline Was cloven at thine uprise, and thou didst stand Within a veined shell, which floated on Over the calm floor of the crystal sea, Among the Aegean isles, and by the shores _25 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 caves And all that dwells within them; till grief cast _30 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. Hearest thou not sounds i’ the air which speak the love _35 Of all articulate beings? Feelest thou not The inanimate winds enamoured of thee? List!

NOTE: _22 thine B; thy 1820.

[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, _40 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 _45 Are happier still, after long sufferings, As I shall soon become.

PANTHEA: List! Spirits speak.

VOICE IN THE AIR, SINGING: Life of Life! thy lips enkindle With their love the breath between them; And thy smiles before they dwindle _50 Make the cold air fire; then screen them In those looks, where whoso gazes Faints, entangled in their mazes.

Child of Light! thy limbs are burning Through the vest which seems to hide them; _55 As the radiant lines of morning Through the clouds ere they divide them; And this atmosphere divinest Shrouds thee wheresoe’er thou shinest.

Fair are others; none beholds thee, _60 But thy voice sounds low and tender Like the fairest, for it folds thee From the sight, that liquid splendour, And all feel, yet see thee never, As I feel now, lost for ever! _65

Lamp of Earth! where’er thou movest Its dim shapes are clad with brightness, And the souls of whom thou lovest Walk upon the winds with lightness, Till they fail, as I am failing, _70 Dizzy, lost, yet unbewailing!

NOTE: _54 limbs B, edition 1839; lips 1820.

ASIA: My soul is an enchanted boat, Which, like a sleeping swan, doth float Upon the silver waves of thy sweet singing; And thine doth like an angel sit _75 Beside a helm conducting it, Whilst all the winds with melody are ringing. It seems to float ever, for ever, Upon that many-winding river, Between mountains, woods, abysses, _80 A paradise of wildernesses! Till, like one in slumber bound, Borne to the ocean, I float down, around, Into a sea profound, of ever-spreading sound:

Meanwhile thy spirit lifts its pinions _85 In music’s most serene dominions; Catching the winds that fan that happy heaven. And we sail on, away, afar, Without a course, without a star, But, by the instinct of sweet music driven; _90 Till through Elysian garden islets By thee most beautiful of pilots, Where never mortal pinnace glided, The boat of my desire is guided: Realms where the air we breathe is love, _95 Which in the winds on the waves doth move, Harmonizing this earth with what we feel above.

We have passed Age’s icy caves, And Manhood’s dark and tossing waves, And Youth’s smooth ocean, smiling to betray: _100 Beyond the glassy gulfs we flee Of shadow-peopled Infancy, Through Death and Birth, to a diviner day; A paradise of vaulted bowers, Lit by downward-gazing flowers, _105 And watery paths that wind between Wildernesses calm and green, Peopled by shapes too bright to see, And rest, having beheld; somewhat like thee; Which walk upon the sea, and chant melodiously! _110

NOTE: _96 winds and on B; winds on 1820.

END OF ACT 2.

Act 3, Scene 1 — HEAVEN. JUPITER ON HIS THRONE; THETIS AND THE OTHER DEITIES ASSEMBLED

JUPITER: Ye congregated powers of heaven, who share The glory and the strength of him ye serve, Rejoice! henceforth I am omnipotent. All else had been subdued to me; alone The soul of man, like unextinguished fire, _5 Yet burns towards heaven with fierce reproach, and doubt, And lamentation, and reluctant prayer, Hurling up insurrection, which might make Our antique empire insecure, though built On eldest faith, and hell’s coeval, fear; _10 And though my curses through the pendulous air, Like snow on herbless peaks, fall flake by flake, And cling to it; though under my wrath’s night It climbs the crags of life, step after step, Which wound it, as ice wounds unsandalled feet, _15 It yet remains supreme o’er misery, Aspiring, unrepressed, yet soon to fall: Even now have I begotten a strange wonder, That fatal child, the terror of the earth, Who waits but till the destined hour arrive, _20 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. Pour forth heaven’s wine, Idaean Ganymede, _25 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 stars: Drink! be the nectar circling through your veins _30 The soul of joy, ye ever-living Gods, Till exultation burst in one wide voice Like music from Elysian winds. And thou Ascend beside me, veiled in the light Of the desire which makes thee one with me, _35 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 _40 Into a dew with poison, is dissolved, Sinking through its foundations:’ even then Two mighty spirits, mingling, made a third Mightier than either, which, unbodied now, Between us floats, felt, although unbeheld, _45 Waiting the incarnation, which ascends, (Hear ye the thunder of the fiery wheels Griding the winds?) from Demogorgon’s throne. Victory! victory! Feel’st thou not, O world, The earthquake of his chariot thundering up _50 Olympus? [THE CAR OF THE HOUR ARRIVES. DEMOGORGON DESCENDS, AND MOVES TOWARDS THE THRONE OF JUPITER.] Awful shape, what art thou? Speak!

NOTES: _5 like unextinguished B, edition 1839; like an unextinguished 1820. _13 night B, edition 1839; might 1820. _20 destined B, edition 1839; distant 1820.

DEMOGORGON: Eternity. Demand no direr name. Descend, and follow me down the abyss. I am thy child, as thou wert Saturn’s child; Mightier than thee: and we must dwell together _55 Henceforth in darkness. Lift thy lightnings not. The tyranny of heaven none may retain, Or reassume, or hold, succeeding thee: Yet if thou wilt, as ’tis the destiny Of trodden worms to writhe till they are dead, _60 Put forth thy might.

JUPITER: Detested prodigy! Even thus beneath the deep Titanian prisons I trample thee! thou lingerest? Mercy! mercy! No pity, no release, no respite! Oh, That thou wouldst make mine enemy my judge, _65 Even where he hangs, seared by my long revenge, On Caucasus! he would not doom me thus. Gentle, and just, and dreadless, is he not The monarch of the world? What then art thou? No refuge! no appeal! Sink with me then, _70 We two 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, _75 And whelm on them into the bottomless void This desolated world, and thee, and me, The conqueror and the conquered, and the wreck Of that for which they combated. Ai, Ai! The elements obey me not. I sink _80 Dizzily down, ever, for ever, down. And, like a cloud, mine enemy above Darkens my fall with victory! Ai, Ai!

NOTE: _69 then B, edition 1839; omitted 1820.

SCENE 3.2: THE MOUTH OF A GREAT RIVER IN THE ISLAND ATLANTIS. OCEAN IS DISCOVERED RECLINING NEAR THE SHORE; APOLLO STANDS BESIDE HIM.

OCEAN: He fell, thou sayest, beneath his conqueror’s frown?

APOLLO: Ay, when the strife was ended which made dim The orb I rule, and shook the solid stars, The terrors of his eye illumined heaven With sanguine light, through the thick ragged skirts _5 Of the victorious darkness, as he fell: Like the last glare of day’s red agony, Which, from a rent among the fiery clouds, Burns far along the tempest-wrinkled deep.

OCEAN: He sunk to the abyss? To the dark void? _10

APOLLO: An eagle so caught in some bursting cloud On Caucasus, his thunder-baffled wings Entangled in the whirlwind, and his eyes Which gazed on the undazzling sun, now blinded By the white lightning, while the ponderous hail _15 Beats on his struggling form, which sinks at length Prone, and the aereal ice clings over it.

OCEAN: Henceforth the fields of heaven-reflecting sea Which are my realm, will heave, unstained with blood, Beneath the uplifting winds, like plains of corn _20 Swayed by the summer air; my streams will flow Round many-peopled continents, and round Fortunate isles; and from their glassy thrones Blue Proteus and his humid nymphs shall mark The shadow of fair ships, as mortals see _25 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; Tracking their path no more by blood and groans, And desolation, and the mingled voice _30 Of slavery and command; but by the light Of wave-reflected flowers, and floating odours, And music soft, and mild, free, gentle voices, And sweetest music, such as spirits love.

NOTES: _22 many-peopled B; many peopled 1820. _26 light-laden B; light laden 1820.

APOLLO: And I shall gaze not on the deeds which make _35 My mind obscure with sorrow, as eclipse Darkens the sphere I guide; but list, I hear The small, clear, silver lute of the young Spirit That sits i’ the morning star.

NOTE: _39 i’ the B, edition 1839; on the 1820.

OCEAN: Thou must away; Thy steeds will pause at even, till when farewell: _40 The loud deep calls me home even now to feed it With azure calm out of the emerald urns Which stand for ever full beside my throne. Behold the Nereids under the green sea, Their wavering limbs borne on the wind-like stream, _45 Their white arms lifted o’er their streaming hair With garlands pied and starry sea-flower crowns, Hastening to grace their mighty sister’s joy. [A SOUND OF WAVES IS HEARD.] It is the unpastured sea hungering for calm. Peace, monster; I come now. Farewell.

APOLLO: Farewell. _50

SCENE 3.3: CAUCASUS. PROMETHEUS, HERCULES, IONE, THE EARTH, SPIRITS, ASIA, AND PANTHEA, BORNE IN THE CAR WITH THE SPIRIT OF THE HOUR. HERCULES UNBINDS PROMETHEUS, WHO DESCENDS.

HERCULES: Most glorious among Spirits, thus doth strength To wisdom, courage, and long-suffering love, And thee, who art the form they animate, Minister like a slave.

PROMETHEUS: Thy gentle words Are sweeter even than freedom long desired _5 And long delayed. Asia, thou light of life, Shadow of beauty unbeheld: and ye, Fair sister nymphs, who made long years of pain Sweet to remember, through your love and care: Henceforth we will not part. There is a cave, _10 All overgrown with trailing odorous plants, Which curtain out the day with leaves and flowers, And paved with veined emerald, and a fountain Leaps in the midst with an awakening sound. From its curved roof the mountain’s frozen tears _15 Like snow, or silver, or long diamond spires, Hang downward, raining forth a doubtful light: And there is heard the ever-moving air, Whispering without from tree to tree, and birds, And bees; and all around are mossy seats, _20 And the rough walls are clothed with long soft grass; A simple dwelling, which shall be our own; Where we will sit and talk of time and change, As the world ebbs and flows, ourselves unchanged. What can hide man from mutability? _25 And if ye sigh, then I will smile; and thou, Ione, shalt chant fragments of sea-music, Until I weep, when ye shall smile away The tears she brought, which yet were sweet to shed. We will entangle buds and flowers and beams _30 Which twinkle on the fountain’s brim, and make Strange combinations out of common things, Like human babes in their brief innocence; And we will search, with looks and words of love, For hidden thoughts, each lovelier than the last, _35 Our unexhausted spirits; and like lutes Touched by the skill of the enamoured wind, Weave harmonies divine, yet ever new, From difference sweet where discord cannot be; And hither come, sped on the charmed winds, _40 Which meet from all the points of heaven, as bees From every flower aereal Enna feeds, At their known island-homes in Himera, The echoes of the human world, which tell Of the low voice of love, almost unheard, _45 And dove-eyed pity’s murmured pain, and music, Itself the echo of the heart, and all That tempers or improves man’s life, now free; And lovely apparitions,—dim at first, Then radiant, as the mind, arising bright _50 From the embrace of beauty (whence the forms Of which these are the phantoms) casts on them The gathered rays which are reality— Shall visit us, the progeny immortal Of Painting, Sculpture, and rapt Poesy, _55 And arts, though unimagined, yet to be. The wandering voices and the shadows these Of all that man becomes, the mediators Of that best worship love, by him and us Given and returned; swift shapes and sounds, which grow _60 More fair and soft as man grows wise and kind, And, veil by veil, evil and error fall: Such virtue has the cave and place around. [TURNING TO THE SPIRIT OF THE HOUR.] For thee, fair Spirit, one toil remains. Ione, Give her that curved shell, which Proteus old _65 Made Asia’s nuptial boon, breathing within it A voice to be accomplished, and which thou Didst hide in grass under the hollow rock.

IONE: Thou most desired Hour, more loved and lovely Than all thy sisters, this is the mystic shell; _70 See the pale azure fading into silver Lining it with a soft yet glowing light: Looks it not like lulled music sleeping there?

SPIRIT: It seems in truth the fairest shell of Ocean: Its sound must be at once both sweet and strange. _75

PROMETHEUS: Go, borne over the cities of mankind On whirlwind-footed coursers: once again Outspeed the sun around the orbed world; And as thy chariot cleaves the kindling air, Thou breathe into the many-folded shell, _80 Loosening its mighty music; it shall be As thunder mingled with clear echoes: then Return; and thou shalt dwell beside our cave. And thou, O Mother Earth!—

THE EARTH: I hear, I feel; Thy lips are on me, and thy touch runs down _85 Even to the adamantine central gloom Along these marble nerves; ’tis life, ’tis joy, And, through my withered, old, and icy frame The warmth of an immortal youth shoots down Circling. Henceforth the many children fair _90 Folded in my sustaining arms; all plants, And creeping forms, and insects rainbow-winged, And birds, and beasts, and fish, and human shapes, Which drew disease and pain from my wan bosom, Draining the poison of despair, shall take _95 And interchange sweet nutriment; to me Shall they become like sister-antelopes By one fair dam, snow-white and swift as wind, Nursed among lilies near a brimming stream. The dew-mists of my sunless sleep shall float _100 Under the stars like balm: night-folded flowers Shall suck unwithering hues in their repose: And men and beasts in happy dreams shall gather Strength for the coming day, and all its joy: And death shall be the last embrace of her _105 Who takes the life she gave, even as a mother, Folding her child, says, ‘Leave me not again.’

NOTES: _85 their B; thy 1820. _102 unwithering B, edition 1839; unwitting 1820.

ASIA: Oh, mother! wherefore speak the name of death? Cease they to love, and move, and breathe, and speak, Who die?

THE EARTH: It would avail not to reply: _110 Thou art immortal, and this tongue is known But to the uncommunicating dead. Death is the veil which those who live call life: They sleep, and it is lifted: and meanwhile In mild variety the seasons mild _115 With rainbow-skirted showers, and odorous winds, And long blue meteors cleansing the dull night, And the life-kindling shafts of the keen sun’s All-piercing bow, and the dew-mingled rain Of the calm moonbeams, a soft influence mild, _120 Shall clothe the forests and the fields, ay, even The crag-built deserts of the barren deep, With ever-living leaves, and fruits, and flowers. And thou! There is a cavern where my spirit Was panted forth in anguish whilst thy pain _125 Made my heart mad, and those who did inhale it Became mad too, and built a temple there, And spoke, and were oracular, and lured The erring nations round to mutual war, And faithless faith, such as Jove kept with thee; _130 Which breath now rises, as amongst tall weeds A violet’s exhalation, and it fills With a serener light and crimson air Intense, yet soft, the rocks and woods around; It feeds the quick growth of the serpent vine, _135 And the dark linked ivy tangling wild, And budding, blown, or odour-faded blooms Which star the winds with points of coloured light, As they rain through them, and bright golden globes Of fruit, suspended in their own green heaven, _140 And through their veined leaves and amber stems The flowers whose purple and translucid bowls Stand ever mantling with aereal dew, The drink of spirits: and it circles round, Like the soft waving wings of noonday dreams, _145 Inspiring calm and happy thoughts, like mine, Now thou art thus restored. This cave is thine. Arise! Appear! [A SPIRIT RISES IN THE LIKENESS OF A WINGED CHILD.] This is my torch-bearer; Who let his lamp out in old time with gazing On eyes from which he kindled it anew _150 With love, which is as fire, sweet daughter mine, For such is that within thine own. Run, wayward, And guide this company beyond the peak Of Bacchic Nysa, Maenad-haunted mountain, And beyond Indus and its tribute rivers, _155 Trampling the torrent streams and glassy lakes With feet unwet, unwearied, undelaying, And up the green ravine, across the vale, Beside the windless and crystalline pool, Where ever lies, on unerasing waves, _160 The image of a temple, built above, Distinct with column, arch, and architrave, And palm-like capital, and over-wrought, And populous with most living imagery, Praxitelean shapes, whose marble smiles _165 Fill the hushed air with everlasting love. It is deserted now, but once it bore Thy name, Prometheus; there the emulous youths Bore to thy honour through the divine gloom The lamp which was thine emblem; even as those _170 Who bear the untransmitted torch of hope Into the grave, across the night of life, As thou hast borne it most triumphantly To this far goal of Time. Depart, farewell. Beside that temple is the destined cave. _175

NOTE: _164 with most B; most with 1820.

SCENE 3.4: A FOREST. IN THE BACKGROUND A CAVE. PROMETHEUS, ASIA, PANTHEA, IONE, AND THE SPIRIT OF THE EARTH.

IONE: Sister, it is not earthly: how it glides Under the leaves! how on its head there burns A light, like a green star, whose emerald beams Are twined with its fair hair! how, as it moves, The splendour drops in flakes upon the grass! _5 Knowest thou it?

PANTHEA: It is the delicate spirit That guides the earth through heaven. From afar The populous constellations call that light The loveliest of the planets; and sometimes It floats along the spray of the salt sea, _10 Or makes its chariot of a foggy cloud, Or walks through fields or cities while men sleep, Or o’er the mountain tops, or down the rivers, Or through the green waste wilderness, as now, Wondering at all it sees. Before Jove reigned _15 It loved our sister Asia, and it came Each leisure hour to drink the liquid light Out of her eyes, for which it said it thirsted As one bit by a dipsas, and with her It made its childish confidence, and told her _20 All it had known or seen, for it saw much, Yet idly reasoned what it saw; and called her— For whence it sprung it knew not, nor do I— Mother, dear mother.

THE SPIRIT OF THE EARTH [RUNNING TO ASIA]: Mother, dearest mother; May I then talk with thee as I was wont? _25 May I then hide my eyes in thy soft arms, After thy looks have made them tired of joy? May I then play beside thee the long noons, When work is none in the bright silent air?

ASIA: I love thee, gentlest being, and henceforth _30 Can cherish thee unenvied: speak, I pray: Thy simple talk once solaced, now delights.

SPIRIT OF THE EARTH: Mother, I am grown wiser, though a child Cannot be wise like thee, within this day; And happier too; happier and wiser both. _35 Thou knowest that toads, and snakes, and loathly worms, And venomous and malicious beasts, and boughs That bore ill berries in the woods, were ever An hindrance to my walks o’er the green world: And that, among the haunts of humankind, _40 Hard-featured men, or with proud, angry looks, Or cold, staid gait, or false and hollow smiles, Or the dull sneer of self-loved ignorance, Or other such foul masks, with which ill thoughts Hide that fair being whom we spirits call man; _45 And women too, ugliest of all things evil, (Though fair, even in a world where thou art fair, When good and kind, free and sincere like thee) When false or frowning made me sick at heart To pass them, though they slept, and I unseen. _50 Well, my path lately lay through a great city Into the woody hills surrounding it: A sentinel was sleeping at the gate: When there was heard a sound, so loud, it shook The towers amid the moonlight, yet more sweet _55 Than any voice but thine, sweetest of all; A long, long sound, as it would never end: And all the inhabitants leaped suddenly Out of their rest, and gathered in the streets, Looking in wonder up to Heaven, while yet _60 The music pealed along. I hid myself Within a fountain in the public square, Where I lay like the reflex of the moon Seen in a wave under green leaves; and soon Those ugly human shapes and visages _65 Of which I spoke as having wrought me pain, Passed floating through the air, and fading still Into the winds that scattered them; and those From whom they passed seemed mild and lovely forms After some foul disguise had fallen, and all _70 Were somewhat changed, and after brief surprise And greetings of delighted wonder, all Went to their sleep again: and when the dawn Came, wouldst thou think that toads, and snakes, and efts, Could e’er be beautiful? yet so they were, _75 And that with little change of shape or hue: All things had put their evil nature off: I cannot tell my joy, when o’er a lake, Upon a drooping bough with nightshade twined, I saw two azure halcyons clinging downward _80 And thinning one bright bunch of amber berries, With quick long beaks, and in the deep there lay Those lovely forms imaged as in a sky; So, with my thoughts full of these happy changes, We meet again, the happiest change of all. _85

ASIA: And never will we part, till thy chaste sister Who guides the frozen and inconstant moon Will look on thy more warm and equal light Till her heart thaw like flakes of April snow And love thee.

SPIRIT OF THE EARTH: What! as Asia loves Prometheus? _90

ASIA: Peace, wanton, thou art yet not old enough. Think ye by gazing on each other’s eyes To multiply your lovely selves, and fill With sphered fires the interlunar air?

SPIRIT OF THE EARTH: Nay, mother, while my sister trims her lamp ’Tis hard I should go darkling. _95

ASIA: Listen; look!

[THE SPIRIT OF THE HOUR ENTERS.]

PROMETHEUS: We feel what thou hast heard and seen: yet speak.

SPIRIT OF THE HOUR: Soon as the sound had ceased whose thunder filled The abysses of the sky and the wide earth, There was a change: the impalpable thin air _100 And the all-circling sunlight were transformed, As if the sense of love dissolved in them Had folded itself round the sphered world. My vision then grew clear, and I could see Into the mysteries of the universe: _105 Dizzy as with delight I floated down, Winnowing the lightsome air with languid plumes, My coursers sought their birthplace in the sun, Where they henceforth will live exempt from toil, Pasturing flowers of vegetable fire; _110 And where my moonlike car will stand within A temple, gazed upon by Phidian forms Of thee, and Asia, and the Earth, and me, And you fair nymphs looking the love we feel,— In memory of the tidings it has borne,— _115 Beneath a dome fretted with graven flowers, Poised on twelve columns of resplendent stone, And open to the bright and liquid sky. Yoked to it by an amphisbaenic snake The likeness of those winged steeds will mock _120 The flight from which they find repose. Alas, Whither has wandered now my partial tongue When all remains untold which ye would hear? As I have said, I floated to the earth: It was, as it is still, the pain of bliss _125 To move, to breathe, to be. I wandering went Among the haunts and dwellings of mankind, And first was disappointed not to see Such mighty change as I had felt within Expressed in outward things; but soon I looked, _130 And behold, thrones were kingless, and men walked One with the other even as spirits do, None fawned, none trampled; hate, disdain, or fear, Self-love or self-contempt, on human brows No more inscribed, as o’er the gate of hell, _135 ‘All hope abandon ye who enter here;’ None frowned, none trembled, none with eager fear Gazed on another’s eye of cold command, Until the subject of a tyrant’s will Became, worse fate, the abject of his own, _140 Which spurred him, like an outspent horse, to death. None wrought his lips in truth-entangling lines Which smiled the lie his tongue disdained to speak; None, with firm sneer, trod out in his own heart The sparks of love and hope till there remained _145 Those bitter ashes, a soul self-consumed, And the wretch crept a vampire among men, Infecting all with his own hideous ill; None talked that common, false, cold, hollow talk Which makes the heart deny the “yes” it breathes, _150 Yet question that unmeant hypocrisy With such a self-mistrust as has no name. And women, too, frank, beautiful, and kind As the free heaven which rains fresh light and dew On the wide earth, past; gentle radiant forms, _155 From custom’s evil taint exempt and pure; Speaking the wisdom once they could not think, Looking emotions once they feared to feel, And changed to all which once they dared not be, Yet being now, made earth like heaven; nor pride, _160 Nor jealousy, nor envy, nor ill shame, The bitterest of those drops of treasured gall, Spoiled the sweet taste of the nepenthe, love.

Thrones, altars, judgement-seats, and prisons; wherein, And beside which, by wretched men were borne _165 Sceptres, tiaras, swords, and chains, and tomes Of reasoned wrong, glozed on by ignorance, Were like those monstrous and barbaric shapes, The ghosts of a no-more-remembered fame, Which, from their unworn obelisks, look forth _170 In triumph o’er the palaces and tombs Of those who were their conquerors: mouldering round, These imaged to the pride of kings and priests A dark yet mighty faith, a power as wide As is the world it wasted, and are now _175 But an astonishment; even so the tools And emblems of its last captivity, Amid the dwellings of the peopled earth, Stand, not o’erthrown, but unregarded now. And those foul shapes, abhorred by god and man,— _180 Which, under many a name and many a form Strange, savage, ghastly, dark and execrable, Were Jupiter, the tyrant of the world; And which the nations, panic-stricken, served With blood, and hearts broken by long hope, and love _185 Dragged to his altars soiled and garlandless, And slain among men’s unreclaiming tears, Flattering the thing they feared, which fear was hate,— Frown, mouldering fast, o’er their abandoned shrines: The painted veil, by those who were, called life, _190 Which mimicked, as with colours idly spread, All men believed and hoped, is torn aside; The loathsome mask has fallen, the man remains Sceptreless, free, uncircumscribed, but man Equal, unclassed, tribeless, and nationless, _195 Exempt from awe, worship, degree, the king Over himself; just, gentle, wise; but man Passionless?—no, yet free from guilt or pain, Which were, for his will made or suffered them, Nor yet exempt, though ruling them like slaves, _200 From chance, and death, and mutability, The clogs of that which else might oversoar The loftiest star of unascended heaven, Pinnacled dim in the intense inane.

NOTES: _121 flight B, edition 1839; light 1820. _173 These B; Those 1820. _187 amid B; among 1820. _192 or B; and 1820.

END OF ACT 3.