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Percy Bysshe Shelley - Prometheus Unbound
Work rating: Medium

1 2 3 4 
A Lyrical Drama, In Four Acts.
Audisne haec amphiarae, sub terram abdite?

ACT I
Scene.—A Ravine of Icy Rocks in the Indian Caucasus. Prometheus is discovered bound to the Precipice. Panthea andIone are seated at his feet. Time, night. During the Scene, morning slowly breaks.


Prometheus.
Monarch of Gods and Dæmons, 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
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,
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:—
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,
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?
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!


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 wingèd hound, polluting from thy lips
His beak in poison not his own, tears up
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:
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,
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
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,
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-voicèd Echoes, through the mist
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!
And ye swift Whirlwinds, who on poisèd wings
Hung mute and moveless o`er yon hushed abyss,
As thunder, louder than your own, made rock
The orbèd world! If then my words had power,
Though I am changed so that aught evil wish
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.


First Voice
(from the Mountains).
Thrice three hundred thousand years
  O`er the Earthquake`s couch we stood:
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,
  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.


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.


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
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:
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—
Though silence is as 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,
And the pale nations heard it, `Misery!`


Prometheus.
I heard 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,
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,
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,
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.


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
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
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.


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
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,
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,
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 spherèd light wane in wide Heaven; the sea
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
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
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,
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,
But dare not speak them.


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.


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:
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,
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,
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
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
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.
Phantasm of Jupiter, arise, appear!


Ione.


  My wings are folded o`er mine ears:
    My wings are crossèd o`er mine eyes:
  Yet through their silver shade appears,
    And through their lulling plumes arise,
  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.


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
    To stay steps proud, o`er the slow cloud
  His veinèd 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
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?


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,
Gray 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.


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,
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 Human-kind,
    One only being shalt thou not subdue.
  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
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.
  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,
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!
  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,
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.
  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
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.


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,
Your refuge, your defence lies fallen and vanquishèd.


First Echo.
Lies fallen and vanquishèd!


Second Echo.
Fallen and vanquishèd!


Ione.
Fear not: `tis but some passing spasm,
  The Titan is unvanquished still.
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,
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.


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—


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
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.


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,
Your foodless teeth. Geryon, arise! and Gorgon,
Chimæra, 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!
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.
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,
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
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.
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
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
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-wingèd snow cling round my hair:
Whilst my belovèd 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,
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:
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.
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,
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
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
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,
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?


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,
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!
Most heavily remorse hangs at my heart!


Panthea.
See where the child of Heaven, with wingèd 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
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,
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,
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,
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.
But why more hideous than your loathèd 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,
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 aëreal crimson falls, flushing her cheek,
So from our victim`s destined agony
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,
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,
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
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
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,
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,
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;
  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
  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
         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.


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 wingèd car
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,
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
Which must bend the Invincible,
  The stern of thought;
He yet defies the deepest power of Hell.


A Fury.
Tear the veil!


Another Fury.
               It is torn.


Chorus.
                            The pale stars of the morn
Shine on a misery, dire to be borne.
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.
    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
       Many a million-peopled city
    Vomits smoke in the bright air.
    Hark that outcry of despair!
    `Tis his mild and gentle ghost
       Wailing for the faith he kindled:
    Look again, the flames almost
       To a glow-worm`s lamp have dwindled:
The survivors round the embers
  Gather in dread.
         Joy, joy, joy!
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.


Semichorus I.
Drops of bloody agony flow
From his white and quivering brow.
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;
A legioned band of linkèd brothers
Whom Love calls children—


Semichorus II.
                             `Tis another`s:
  See how kindred murder kin:
  `Tis the vintage-time for death and sin:
  Blood, like new wine, bubbles within:
    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,
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.


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:
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.


Fury.
Behold an emblem: those who do endure
Deep wrongs for man, and scorn, and chains, but heap
Thousandfold 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,
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,
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:
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.


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


Prometheus.
Worse?

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