NOTE: _137 And love 1820; And lovest cj. Swinburne.
PROMETHEUS:Venerable mother!All else who live and suffer take from theeSome 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: _195One that which thou beholdest; but the otherIs underneath the grave, where do inhabitThe shadows of all forms that think and liveTill death unite them and they part no more;Dreams and the light imaginings of men, _200And 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 godsAre there, and all the powers of nameless worlds, _205Vast, sceptred phantoms; heroes, men, and beasts;And Demogorgon, a tremendous gloom;And he, the supreme Tyrant, on his throneOf burning gold. Son, one of these shall utterThe curse which all remember. Call at will _210Thine own ghost, or the ghost of Jupiter,Hades or Typhon, or what mightier GodsFrom all-prolific Evil, since thy ruin,Have sprung, and trampled on my prostrate sons.Ask, and they must reply: so the revenge _215Of the Supreme may sweep through vacant shades,As rainy wind through the abandoned gateOf a fallen palace.
PROMETHEUS:Mother, let not aughtOf that which may be evil, pass againMy lips, or those of aught resembling me. _220Phantasm 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, _225A Shape, a throng of sounds;May it be no ill to theeO 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 _235To stay steps proud, o’er the slow cloudHis 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 _240Driven me, a frail and empty phantom, hitherOn direst storms? What unaccustomed soundsAre hovering on my lips, unlike the voiceWith which our pallid race hold ghastly talkIn darkness? And, proud sufferer, who art thou? _245
PROMETHEUS:Tremendous Image, as thou art must beHe 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, _250Grey 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 HeavenDarkens 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, _260Written 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. _265Rain then thy plagues upon me here,Ghastly disease, and frenzying fear;And let alternate frost and fireEat into me, and be thine ireLightning, and cutting hail, and legioned forms _270Of 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 sentTo blast mankind, from yon ethereal tower. _275Let thy malignant spirit moveIn darkness over those I love:On me and mine I imprecateThe utmost torture of thy hate;And thus devote to sleepless agony, _280This 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 bowIn fear and worship: all-prevailing foe! _285I curse thee! let a sufferer’s curseClasp thee, his torturer, like remorse;Till thine Infinity shall beA robe of envenomed agony;And thine Omnipotence a crown of pain, _290To 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. _295An awful image of calm powerThough now thou sittest, let the hourCome, when thou must appear to beThat which thou art internally;And after many a false and fruitless crime _300Scorn 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, _310Your 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. _315But see, where through the azure chasmOf yon forked and snowy hillTrampling the slant winds on highWith golden-sandalled feet, that glowUnder plumes of purple dye, _320Like rose-ensanguined ivory,A Shape comes now,Stretching on high from his right handA serpent-cinctured wand.
PANTHEA:’Tis Jove’s world-wandering herald, Mercury. _325
IONE:And who are those with hydra tressesAnd iron wings that climb the wind,Whom the frowning God repressesLike 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 cloudHe bursts Heaven’s bounds.
IONE:Are they now led, from the thin dead _335On 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 heapOf corpses, to a death-bird after battle. _340
FIRST FURY:Darest thou delay, O Herald! take cheer, HoundsOf Hell: what if the Son of Maia soonShould make us food and sport—who can please longThe Omnipotent?
MERCURY:Back to your towers of iron,And gnash, beside the streams of fire and wail, _345Your foodless teeth. Geryon, arise! and Gorgon,Chimaera, and thou Sphinx, subtlest of fiendsWho ministered to Thebes Heaven’s poisoned wine,Unnatural love, and more unnatural hate:These shall perform your task.
FIRST FURY:Oh, mercy! mercy! _350We die with our desire: drive us not back!
MERCURY:Crouch then in silence.Awful Sufferer!To thee unwilling, most unwillinglyI come, by the great Father’s will driven down,To execute a doom of new revenge. _355Alas! I pity thee, and hate myselfThat I can do no more: aye from thy sightReturning, for a season, Heaven seems Hell,So thy worn form pursues me night and day,Smiling reproach. Wise art thou, firm and good, _360But vainly wouldst stand forth alone in strifeAgainst the Omnipotent; as yon clear lampsThat measure and divide the weary yearsFrom which there is no refuge, long have taughtAnd long must teach. Even now thy Torturer arms _365With the strange might of unimagined painsThe powers who scheme slow agonies in Hell,And my commission is to lead them here,Or what more subtle, foul, or savage fiendsPeople the abyss, and leave them to their task. _370Be it not so! there is a secret knownTo 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 _375In 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 tameThe fiercest and the mightiest.
PROMETHEUS:Evil minds _380Change good to their own nature. I gave allHe has; and in return he chains me hereYears, ages, night and day: whether the SunSplit my parched skin, or in the moony nightThe crystal-winged snow cling round my hair: _385Whilst my beloved race is trampled downBy 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, _390He can feel hate, fear, shame; not gratitude:He but requites me for his own misdeed.Kindness to such is keen reproach, which breaksWith bitter stings the light sleep of Revenge.Submission, thou dost know I cannot try: _395For 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. _400Let others flatter Crime, where it sits thronedIn brief Omnipotence: secure are they:For Justice, when triumphant, will weep downPity, not punishment, on her own wrongs,Too much avenged by those who err. I wait, _405Enduring thus, the retributive hourWhich 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 _410And 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 _415Do I desire or fear.
MERCURY:Yet pause, and plungeInto Eternity, where recorded time,Even all that we imagine, age on age,Seems but a point, and the reluctant mindFlags wearily in its unending flight, _420Till it sink, dizzy, blind, lost, shelterless;Perchance it has not numbered the slow yearsWhich 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 whileLapped in voluptuous joy? _425
PROMETHEUS:I would not quitThis 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. _430As light in the sun, throned: how vain is talk!Call up the fiends.
IONE:O, sister, look! White fireHas 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! _435Most 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 eyesLest thou behold and die: they come: they come _440Blackening 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, _445What and who are ye? Never yet there camePhantasms so foul through monster-teeming HellFrom the all-miscreative brain of Jove;Whilst I behold such execrable shapes,Methinks I grow like what I contemplate, _450And 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 pursueThrough wood and lake some struck and sobbing fawn, _455We 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 knowThe darkness and the clangour of your wings. _460But why more hideous than your loathed selvesGather 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, _465Gazing on one another: so are we.As from the rose which the pale priestess kneelsTo gather for her festal crown of flowersThe aereal crimson falls, flushing her cheek,So from our victim’s destined agony _470The 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, _475And 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 imagineWe will but laugh into thy lidless eyes?
PROMETHEUS:I weigh not what ye do, but what ye suffer, _480Being evil. Cruel was the power which calledYou, 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 notThe soul which burns within, that we will dwell _485Beside it, like a vain loud multitudeVexing 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 _490Crawling like agony?
PROMETHEUS:Why, ye are thus now;Yet am I king over myself, and ruleThe 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, _495Where 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 yeWho with wingless footsteps trample the sea, _500And 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; _505Leave the hatred, as in ashesFire is left for future burning:It will burst in bloodier flashesWhen ye stir it, soon returning:Leave the self-contempt implanted _510In young spirits, sense-enchanted,Misery’s yet unkindled fuel:Leave Hell’s secrets half unchantedTo the maniac dreamer; cruelMore than ye can be with hate _515Is he with fear.Come, come, come!We are steaming up from Hell’s wide gateAnd 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 soundEven as the tremulous air: their shadows makeThe space within my plumes more black than night.
FIRST FURY:Your call was as a winged car, _525Driven 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, _530Where 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 _535Which 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 mornShine on a misery, dire to be borne. _540Dost 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 outranThose perishing waters; a thirst of fierce fever,Hope, love, doubt, desire, which consume him for ever. _545One came forth of gentle worthSmiling on the sanguine earth;His words outlived him, like swift poisonWithering up truth, peace, and pity.Look! where round the wide horizon _550Many a million-peopled cityVomits smoke in the bright air.Mark that outcry of despair!’Tis his mild and gentle ghostWailing for the faith he kindled: _555Look again, the flames almostTo a glow-worm’s lamp have dwindled:The survivors round the embersGather in dread.Joy, joy, joy! _560Past ages crowd on thee, but each one remembers,And the future is dark, and the present is spreadLike a pillow of thorns for thy slumberless head.
NOTE: _553 Hark B; Mark 1820.
SEMICHORUS 1:Drops of bloody agony flowFrom his white and quivering brow. _565Grant a little respite now:See a disenchanted nationSprings like day from desolation;To Truth its state is dedicate,And Freedom leads it forth, her mate; _570A legioned band of linked brothersWhom 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: _575Till Despair smothersThe struggling world, which slaves and tyrants win.
IONE:Hark, sister! what a low yet dreadful groanQuite unsuppressed is tearing up the heartOf the good Titan, as storms tear the deep, _580And 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 youthWith patient looks nailed to a crucifix. _585
IONE:What next?
PANTHEA:The heaven around, the earth belowWas 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: _590And other sights too foul to speak and liveWere wandering by. Let us not tempt worse fearBy looking forth: those groans are grief enough.
NOTE: _589 And 1820; Tho’ B.
FURY:Behold an emblem: those who do endureDeep wrongs for man, and scorn, and chains, but heap _595Thousand-fold torment on themselves and him.
PROMETHEUS:Remit the anguish of that lighted stare;Close those wan lips; let that thorn-wounded browStream not with blood; it mingles with thy tears!Fix, fix those tortured orbs in peace and death, _600So 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 seeThe wise, the mild, the lofty, and the just, _605Whom 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: _610Some—Hear I not the multitude laugh loud?—Impaled in lingering fire: and mighty realmsFloat by my feet, like sea-uprooted isles,Whose sons are kneaded down in common bloodBy 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 survivesThe ravin it has gorged: the loftiest fearAll that they would disdain to think were true: _620Hypocrisy and custom make their mindsThe 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. _625The 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 _630As 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! _635I close my tearless eyes, but see more clearThy 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, _640Nor would I seek it: for, though dread revenge,This is defeat, fierce king, not victory.The sights with which thou torturest gird my soulWith new endurance, till the hour arrivesWhen 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, theyWere borne aloft in bright emblazonry;The nations thronged around, and cried aloud, _650As with one voice, Truth, liberty, and love!Suddenly fierce confusion fell from heavenAmong 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 joyAs pain and virtue give. To cheer thy stateI bid ascend those subtle and fair spirits,Whose homes are the dim caves of human thought,And who inhabit, as birds wing the wind, _660Its world-surrounding aether: they beholdBeyond 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, _665Thronging 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 weGentle guides and guardians beOf heaven-oppressed mortality;And we breathe, and sicken not, _675The 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 _680Cloudless 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 _685Float through all above the grave;We make there our liquid lair,Voyaging cloudlike and unpentThrough the boundless element:Thence we bear the prophecy _690Which begins and ends in thee!
NOTE: _687 there B, edition 1839; these 1820.
IONE:More yet come, one by one: the air around themLooks radiant as the air around a star.
FIRST SPIRIT:On a battle-trumpet’s blastI 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— _700Freedom! 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, _710Like 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: _715Mighty fleets were strewn like chaffAnd spread beneath a hell of deathO’er the white waters. I alitOn a great ship lightning-split,And speeded hither on the sigh _720Of one who gave an enemyHis plank, then plunged aside to die.
THIRD SPIRIT:I sate beside a sage’s bed,And the lamp was burning redNear the book where he had fed, _725When a Dream with plumes of flame,To his pillow hovering came,And I knew it was the sameWhich had kindled long agoPity, eloquence, and woe; _730And the world awhile belowWore the shade, its lustre made.It has borne me here as fleetAs Desire’s lightning feet:I must ride it back ere morrow, _735Or the sage will wake in sorrow.
FOURTH SPIRIT:On a poet’s lips I sleptDreaming like a love-adeptIn the sound his breathing kept;Nor seeks nor finds he mortal blisses, _740But feeds on the aereal kissesOf shapes that haunt thought’s wildernesses.He will watch from dawn to gloomThe lake-reflected sun illumeThe yellow bees in the ivy-bloom, _745Nor heed nor see, what things they be;But from these create he canForms more real than living man,Nurslings of immortality!One of these awakened me, _750And I sped to succour thee.
IONE:Behold’st thou not two shapes from the east and westCome, as two doves to one beloved nest,Twin nurslings of the all-sustaining airOn swift still wings glide down the atmosphere? _755And, hark! their sweet sad voices! ’tis despairMingled 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 floatOn their sustaining wings of skiey grain, _760Orange 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 dominionsI sped, like some swift cloud that wings the wide air’s wildernesses,That planet-crested shape swept by on lightning-braided pinions, _765Scattering 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, _770Turned 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 wingThe tender hopes which in their hearts the best and gentlest bear; _775Who, soothed to false repose by the fanning plumes aboveAnd 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, _780Following 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, _785Like 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, _790As buds grow red when the snow-storms flee,From Spring gathering up beneath,Whose mild winds shake the elder-brake,And the wandering herdsmen knowThat the white-thorn soon will blow: _795Wisdom, Justice, Love, and Peace,When they struggle to increase,Are to us as soft winds beTo shepherd boys, the prophecyWhich begins and ends in thee. _800
IONE:Where are the Spirits fled?
PANTHEA:Only a senseRemains of them, like the omnipotenceOf music, when the inspired voice and luteLanguish, ere yet the responses are mute,Which through the deep and labyrinthine soul, _805Like echoes through long caverns, wind and roll.
PROMETHEUS:How fair these airborn shapes! and yet I feelMost vain all hope but love; and thou art far,Asia! who, when my being overflowed,Wert like a golden chalice to bright wine _810Which else had sunk into the thirsty dust.All things are still: alas! how heavilyThis quiet morning weighs upon my heart;Though I should dream I could even sleep with griefIf slumber were denied not. I would fain _815Be 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 theeThe cold dark night, and never sleeps but whenThe 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, _825And Asia waits in that far Indian vale,The scene of her sad exile; rugged onceAnd desolate and frozen, like this ravine;But now invested with fair flowers and herbs,And haunted by sweet airs and sounds, which flow _830Among the woods and waters, from the aetherOf her transforming presence, which would fadeIf it were mingled not with thine. Farewell!
ASIA:From all the blasts of heaven thou hast descended:Yes, like a spirit, like a thought, which makesUnwonted tears throng to the horny eyes,And beatings haunt the desolated heart,Which should have learnt repose: thou hast descended _5Cradled in tempests; thou dost wake, O Spring!O child of many winds! As suddenlyThou comest as the memory of a dream,Which now is sad because it hath been sweet;Like genius, or like joy which riseth up _10As from the earth, clothing with golden cloudsThe 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! _15How like death-worms the wingless moments crawl!The point of one white star is quivering stillDeep in the orange light of widening mornBeyond the purple mountains: through a chasmOf wind-divided mist the darker lake _20Reflects it: now it wanes: it gleams againAs the waves fade, and as the burning threadsOf woven cloud unravel in pale air:’Tis lost! and through yon peaks of cloud-like snowThe roseate sunlight quivers: hear I not _25The Aeolian music of her sea-green plumesWinnowing the crimson dawn?
PANTHEA [ENTERS]:I feel, I seeThose eyes which burn through smiles that fade in tears,Like stars half quenched in mists of silver dew.Beloved and most beautiful, who wearest _30The shadow of that soul by which I live,How late thou art! the sphered sun had climbedThe sea; my heart was sick with hope, beforeThe printless air felt thy belated plumes.
PANTHEA:Pardon, great Sister! but my wings were faint _35With the delight of a remembered dream,As are the noontide plumes of summer windsSatiate with sweet flowers. I was wont to sleepPeacefully, and awake refreshed and calmBefore the sacred Titan’s fall, and thy _40Unhappy love, had made, through use and pity,Both love and woe familiar to my heartAs they had grown to thine: erewhile I sleptUnder the glaucous caverns of old OceanWithin dim bowers of green and purple moss, _45Our young Ione’s soft and milky armsLocked then, as now, behind my dark, moist hair,While my shut eyes and cheek were pressed withinThe folded depth of her life-breathing bosom:But not as now, since I am made the wind _50Which fails beneath the music that I bearOf thy most wordless converse; since dissolvedInto the sense with which love talks, my restWas troubled and yet sweet; my waking hoursToo full of care and pain.
ASIA:Lift up thine eyes, _55And let me read thy dream.
PANTHEA:As I have saidWith our sea-sister at his feet I slept.The mountain mists, condensing at our voiceUnder the moon, had spread their snowy flakes,From the keen ice shielding our linked sleep. _60Then two dreams came. One, I remember not.But in the other his pale wound-worn limbsFell from Prometheus, and the azure nightGrew radiant with the glory of that formWhich lives unchanged within, and his voice fell _65Like music which makes giddy the dim brain,Faint with intoxication of keen joy:‘Sister of her whose footsteps pave the worldWith loveliness—more fair than aught but her,Whose shadow thou art—lift thine eyes on me.’ _70I lifted them: the overpowering lightOf that immortal shape was shadowed o’erBy love; which, from his soft and flowing limbs,And passion-parted lips, and keen, faint eyes,Steamed forth like vaporous fire; an atmosphere _75Which wrapped me in its all-dissolving power,As the warm ether of the morning sunWraps ere it drinks some cloud of wandering dew.I saw not, heard not, moved not, only feltHis presence flow and mingle through my blood _80Till 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 _85My being was condensed; and as the raysOf thought were slowly gathered, I could hearHis voice, whose accents lingered ere they diedLike footsteps of weak melody: thy nameAmong the many sounds alone I heard _90Of what might be articulate; though stillI 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, _95Nor ever found delight to wish in vain.But now I cannot tell thee what I seek;I know not; something sweet, since it is sweetEven to desire; it is thy sport, false sister;Thou hast discovered some enchantment old, _100Whose spells have stolen my spirit as I sleptAnd mingled it with thine: for when just nowWe kissed, I felt within thy parted lipsThe sweet air that sustained me, and the warmthOf the life-blood, for loss of which I faint, _105Quivered between our intertwining arms.’I answered not, for the Eastern star grew pale,But fled to thee.
ASIA:Thou speakest, but thy wordsAre as the air: I feel them not: Oh, liftThine eyes, that I may read his written soul! _110
PANTHEA:I lift them though they droop beneath the loadOf that they would express: what canst thou seeBut thine own fairest shadow imaged there?
ASIA:Thine eyes are like the deep, blue, boundless heavenContracted to two circles underneath _115Their 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 depthI see a shade, a shape: ’tis He, arrayed _120In the soft light of his own smiles, which spreadLike radiance from the cloud-surrounded moon.Prometheus, it is thine! depart not yet!Say not those smiles that we shall meet againWithin that bright pavilion which their beams _125Shall build o’er the waste world? The dream is told.What shape is that between us? Its rude hairRoughens the wind that lifts it, its regardIs wild and quick, yet ’tis a thing of air,For through its gray robe gleams the golden dew _130Whose stars the noon has quenched not.
NOTE: _122 moon B; morn 1820. _126 o’er B; on 1820.
DREAMFollow! Follow!
PANTHEA:It is mine other dream.
ASIA:It disappears.
PANTHEA:It passes now into my mind. MethoughtAs we sate here, the flower-infolding budsBurst on yon lightning-blasted almond tree, _135When swift from the white Scythian wildernessA 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 bellsOf Hyacinth tell Apollo’s written grief, _140O, FOLLOW, FOLLOW!
ASIA:As you speak, your wordsFill, pause by pause, my own forgotten sleepWith shapes. Methought among these lawns togetherWe wandered, underneath the young gray dawn,And multitudes of dense white fleecy clouds _145Were wandering in thick flocks along the mountainsShepherded 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: _150But on the shadows of the morning clouds,Athwart the purple mountain slope, was writtenFOLLOW, 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; _155A wind arose among the pines; it shookThe clinging music from their boughs, and thenLow, sweet, faint sounds, like the farewell of ghosts,Were heard: O, FOLLOW, FOLLOW, FOLLOW ME!And then I said, ‘Panthea, look on me.’ _160But in the depth of those beloved eyesStill I saw, FOLLOW, FOLLOW!
NOTE: _143 these B; the 1820.
ECHO:Follow, follow!
PANTHEA:The crags, this clear spring morning, mock our voicesAs they were spirit-tongued.
ASIA:It is some beingAround the crags. What fine clear sounds! O, list! _165
ECHOES, UNSEEN:Echoes we: listen!We cannot stay:As dew-stars glistenThen fade away—Child of Ocean! _170
ASIA:Hark! Spirits speak. The liquid responsesOf their aereal tongues yet sound.
PANTHEA:I hear.
ECHOES:Oh, follow, follow,As our voice recedethThrough the caverns hollow, _175Where the forest spreadeth;[MORE DISTANT.]Oh, follow, follow!Through the caverns hollow,As the song floats thou pursue,Where the wild bee never flew, _180Through the noontide darkness deep,By the odour-breathing sleepOf faint night-flowers, and the wavesAt the fountain-lighted caves,While our music, wild and sweet, _185Mocks thy gently falling feet,Child of Ocean!
ASIA:Shall we pursue the sound? It grows more faintAnd distant.
PANTHEA:List! the strain floats nearer now.
ECHOES:In the world unknown _190Sleeps a voice unspoken;By thy step aloneCan 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, _200Through the many-folded mountains;To the rents, and gulfs, and chasms,Where the Earth reposed from spasms,On the day when He and thouParted, to commingle now; _205Child of Ocean!
ASIA:Come, sweet Panthea, link thy hand in mine,And follow, ere the voices fade away.
SEMICHORUS 1 OF SPIRITS:The path through which that lovely twainHave 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, _5Can 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 _10Of the green laurel, blown anew,And bends, and then fades silently,One frail and fair anemone:Or when some star of many a oneThat climbs and wanders through steep night, _15Has found the cleft through which aloneBeams fall from high those depths uponEre it is borne away, away,By the swift Heavens that cannot stay,It scatters drops of golden light, _20Like 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. _25When one with bliss or sadness fails,And through the windless ivy-boughs,Sick with sweet love, droops dying awayOn its mate’s music-panting bosom;Another from the swinging blossom, _30Watching to catch the languid closeOf the last strain, then lifts on highThe wings of the weak melody,Till some new strain of feeling bearThe song, and all the woods are mute; _35When there is heard through the dim airThe rush of wings, and rising thereLike many a lake-surrounded flute,Sounds overflow the listener’s brainSo sweet, that joy is almost pain. _40
NOTE: _38 surrounded B, edition 1839; surrounding 1820.
SEMICHORUS 1:There those enchanted eddies playOf echoes, music-tongued, which draw,By Demogorgon’s mighty law,With melting rapture, or sweet awe,All spirits on that secret way; _45As inland boats are driven to OceanDown streams made strong with mountain-thaw:And first there comes a gentle soundTo those in talk or slumber bound,And wakes the destined soft emotion,— _50Attracts, impels them; those who sawSay from the breathing earth behindThere steams a plume-uplifting windWhich drives them on their path, while theyBelieve their own swift wings and feet _55The 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 _60Behind, its gathering billows meetAnd to the fatal mountain bearLike clouds amid the yielding air.
NOTE: _50 destined]destinied 1820.
FIRST FAUN:Canst thou imagine where those spirits liveWhich make such delicate music in the woods? _65We haunt within the least frequented cavesAnd 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, _70The bubbles, which the enchantment of the sunSucks from the pale faint water-flowers that paveThe oozy bottom of clear lakes and pools,Are the pavilions where such dwell and floatUnder the green and golden atmosphere _75Which 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, _80And bow their burning crests, and glide in fireUnder the waters of the earth again.
FIRST FAUN:If such live thus, have others other lives,Under pink blossoms or within the bellsOf meadow flowers, or folded violets deep, _85Or 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, _90And grudge to sing those wise and lovely songsOf 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 earthOne brotherhood: delightful strains which cheer _95Our solitary twilights, and which charmTo silence the unenvying nightingales.
NOTE: _93 doom B, edition 1839; dooms 1820.
PANTHEA:Hither the sound has borne us—to the realmOf Demogorgon, and the mighty portal,Like a volcano’s meteor-breathing chasm,Whence the oracular vapour is hurled upWhich lonely men drink wandering in their youth, _5And call truth, virtue, love, genius, or joy,That maddening wine of life, whose dregs they drainTo 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 beThe shadow of some spirit lovelier still,Though evil stain its work, and it should beLike its creation, weak yet beautiful, _15I 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, _20With azure waves which burst in silver light,Some Indian vale. Behold it, rolling onUnder the curdling winds, and islandingThe peak whereon we stand, midway, around,Encinctured by the dark and blooming forests, _25Dim twilight-lawns, and stream-illumined caves,And wind-enchanted shapes of wandering mist;And far on high the keen sky-cleaving mountainsFrom icy spires of sun-like radiance flingThe dawn, as lifted Ocean’s dazzling spray, _30From some Atlantic islet scattered up,Spangles the wind with lamp-like water-drops.The vale is girdled with their walls, a howlOf cataracts from their thaw-cloven ravines,Satiates the listening wind, continuous, vast, _35Awful as silence. Hark! the rushing snow!The sun-awakened avalanche! whose mass,Thrice sifted by the storm, had gathered thereFlake after flake, in heaven-defying mindsAs thought by thought is piled, till some great truth _40Is 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 breakingIn crimson foam, even at our feet! it risesAs Ocean at the enchantment of the moon _45Round 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 brainGrows 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 burnsAn azure fire within its golden locks!Another and another: hark! they speak!
SONG OF SPIRITS:To the deep, to the deep,Down, down! _55Through the shade of sleep,Through the cloudy strifeOf Death and of Life;Through the veil and the barOf things which seem and are _60Even to the steps of the remotest throne,Down, down!
While the sound whirls around,Down, down!As the fawn draws the hound, _65As 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, _70Down, down!
Through the gray, void abysm,Down, down!Where the air is no prism,And the moon and stars are not, _75And the cavern-crags wear notThe 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, _85Like a diamond, which shinesOn the dark wealth of mines,A spell is treasured but for thee alone.Down, down!
We have bound thee, we guide thee; _90Down, down!With the bright form beside thee;Resist not the weakness,Such strength is in meeknessThat the Eternal, the Immortal, _95Must unloose through life’s portalThe snake-like Doom coiled underneath his throneBy that alone.
PANTHEA:What veiled form sits on that ebon throne?
ASIA:The veil has fallen.
PANTHEA:I see a mighty darknessFilling the seat of power, and rays of gloomDart round, as light from the meridian sun.—Ungazed upon and shapeless; neither limb, _5Nor form, nor outline; yet we feel it isA 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 allThat it contains? thought, passion, reason, will, _10Imagination?
DEMOGORGON:God: Almighty God.
ASIA:Who made that sense which, when the winds of SpringIn rarest visitation, or the voiceOf one beloved heard in youth alone,Fills the faint eyes with falling tears which dim _15The radiant looks of unbewailing flowers,And leaves this peopled earth a solitudeWhen 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, _20To every thought within the mind of manSway and drag heavily, and each one reelsUnder the load towards the pit of death;Abandoned hope, and love that turns to hate;And self-contempt, bitterer to drink than blood; _25Pain, whose unheeded and familiar speechIs 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 painAsks 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 throneTime fell, an envious shadow: such the stateOf the earth’s primal spirits beneath his sway, _35As the calm joy of flowers and living leavesBefore the wind or sun has withered themAnd semivital worms; but he refusedThe birthright of their being, knowledge, power,The skill which wields the elements, the thought _40Which pierces this dim universe like light,Self-empire, and the majesty of love;For thirst of which they fainted. Then PrometheusGave wisdom, which is strength, to Jupiter,And with this law alone, ‘Let man be free,’ _45Clothed him with the dominion of wide Heaven.To know nor faith, nor love, nor law; to beOmnipotent but friendless is to reign;And Jove now reigned; for on the race of manFirst famine, and then toil, and then disease, _50Strife, wounds, and ghastly death unseen before,Fell; and the unseasonable seasons droveWith alternating shafts of frost and fire,Their shelterless, pale tribes to mountain caves:And in their desert hearts fierce wants he sent, _55And mad disquietudes, and shadows idleOf unreal good, which levied mutual war,So ruining the lair wherein they raged.Prometheus saw, and waked the legioned hopesWhich sleep within folded Elysian flowers, _60Nepenthe, Moly, Amaranth, fadeless blooms,That they might hide with thin and rainbow wingsThe shape of Death; and Love he sent to bindThe disunited tendrils of that vineWhich bears the wine of life, the human heart; _65And he tamed fire which, like some beast of prey,Most terrible, but lovely, played beneathThe frown of man; and tortured to his willIron and gold, the slaves and signs of power,And gems and poisons, and all subtlest forms _70Hidden 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 _75Poured itself forth in all-prophetic song;And music lifted up the listening spiritUntil it walked, exempt from mortal care,Godlike, o’er the clear billows of sweet sound;And human hands first mimicked and then mocked, _80With moulded limbs more lovely than its own,The human form, till marble grew divine;And mothers, gazing, drank the love men seeReflected in their race, behold, and perish.He told the hidden power of herbs and springs, _85And Disease drank and slept. Death grew like sleep.He taught the implicated orbits wovenOf the wide-wandering stars; and how the sunChanges his lair, and by what secret spellThe pale moon is transformed, when her broad eye _90Gazes 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 thenWere built, and through their snow-like columns flowed _95The 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 hangsWithering in destined pain: but who rains down _100Evil, the immedicable plague, which, whileMan looks on his creation like a GodAnd sees that it is glorious, drives him on,The wreck of his own will, the scorn of earth,The outcast, the abandoned, the alone? _105Not Jove: while yet his frown shook Heaven ay, whenHis adversary from adamantine chainsCursed him, he trembled like a slave. DeclareWho 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: _110Thou 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 abysmCould vomit forth its secrets…But a voice _115Is wanting, the deep truth is imageless;For what would it avail to bid thee gazeOn the revolving world? What to bid speakFate, Time, Occasion, Chance and Change? To theseAll things are subject but eternal Love. _120
ASIA:So much I asked before, and my heart gaveThe response thou hast given; and of such truthsEach to itself must be the oracle.One more demand; and do thou answer meAs my own soul would answer, did it know _125That which I ask. Prometheus shall ariseHenceforth the sun of this rejoicing world:When shall the destined hour arrive?
DEMOGORGON:Behold!
ASIA:The rocks are cloven, and through the purple nightI see cars drawn by rainbow-winged steeds _130Which trample the dim winds: in each there standsA 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 _135With 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 locksStream like a comet’s flashing hair; they allSweep onward.
DEMOGORGON:These are the immortal Hours, _140Of whom thou didst demand. One waits for thee.
ASIA:A Spirit with a dreadful countenanceChecks 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 destinyMore dread than is my aspect: ere yon planetHas set, the darkness which ascends with meShall wrap in lasting night heaven’s kingless throne.
ASIA:What meanest thou?
PANTHEA:That terrible shadow floats _150Up from its throne, as may the lurid smokeOf earthquake-ruined cities o’er the sea.Lo! it ascends the car; the coursers flyTerrified: watch its path among the starsBlackening 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 rimOf delicate strange tracery; the young spiritThat guides it has the dove-like eyes of hope; _160How its soft smiles attract the soul! as lightLures winged insects through the lampless air.