University of Virginia Library

Leaving in haste the Olympian Council Hall,
The apostate Titan down to Earth convey'd
The grudged concession wrung from Zeus. There, all
In conclave multitudinous array'd,
His clients he together call'd (from man
In fair Apollo's faultless image made,
To man's close copy, made on the same plan,
The flat-faced ape) and all the bars undid
Which had till then lock'd mercifully fast
The innumerable voices that, unchid,
Now into riotous utterance rush'd at last.

This done, preferring to appreciate
The concert from a distance, he return'd
To the Olympians—in whose looks irate
A relisht indignation he discern'd.
The Gods and Goddesses, the Demigods
And Demigoddesses, all demi-nude,
(As Classic Art's correctest periods
Prescribed to each the appropriate attitude)
Were listening, with more wonder than delight,
To the new noisiness of earthly things.
For quick and thick each animal appetite
Throbb'd into sudden sound from the loud strings
Of throats in thousands loosed; and left and right
Chirrupings, crowings, howlings, bellowings,
And barkings—bass and treble of mingled mirth
And pain—were now profusely vomited
In vehement hubbub from the vocal Earth.

Meanwhile, as with sloped shoulder, shuffling tread
Evasive, mien morose, and furtive eye,
Thro' Heaven's bright groups the burly Titan sped,
Their comments were not complimentary.
“Please to explain,” resentful Herè said,
“This new caprice, or stop that peacock's cry!
My bird will be a byword and a scoff
If this continues!” “Ah, Fair Majesty,
This new caprice is an old debt paid off,”
Prometheus answer'd. “Fops in pomp array'd
Must now reveal what's in them, to the ear,
Who, to the eye, have heretofore display'd
Only what's on them. But have thou no fear,
Thy favourite makes an admirable show—
From one so beautiful exact no more!”
Eos complain'd of the cock's clamorous crow,
Superfluously sounded o'er and o'er.
“Prometheus might at least,” she said, “for me
Have managed to contrive a less absurd
And indiscreetly strepitant minstrelsy
Than the loud shriek of that ridiculous bird!”
“Sweet Cousin, thine indulgence,” he replied,
“For the cicala's strains (I grant that these
Have not as yet been duly deified)
Leaves to less plaintive notes small chance to please
An ear compassionately prejudiced.
Sleep sounder, and wake later! What hath drawn
Thy blushing charms, untimely thus enticed,
O rosy-finger'd Daughter of the Dawn,
From that soft couch Love's self were fain to lie on?
Is it the memory of Cephalus,
Or else the expectation of Orion?”

With jests sarcastic curtly answering thus
The just reproaches of the Gods, that great
Ungainly Titan strode from spot to spot,
Superbly heedless of the scorn and hate
His course provoked. Olympus loved him not,
Despite his ancient birth and lineage high;
And even the new-made Deities, whose past
Was but of yesterday, with sidelong eye
Look'd on him as a god of lower caste.
The restless spirit that from his peers in Heaven
Ever aloof the unquiet Giant held
Had to his strenuous Titanism given
A tone incongruously coarse. Impell'd
By unintelligible vehemence,
His uncouth grandeur grieved the fluent grace
Of the Olympian Quiet with intense
Abrupt explosive ardours; as apace
On its swift course, all rough with rocks and roots,
And fiercely fluttering with volcanic fire,
Some ravaged morsel of a mountain shoots
Across the cloven crystal of a lake
In whose clear depths stars and still clouds admire
The lucid forms their own reflections take.

Sole, Aphroditè (she, that Fairest Fair,
Whose sacred sweetness from its rancorous tooth
The Titan's biting wit was pleased to spare,
—She for whose solitary sake, in truth,
The sullen menace of his face at whiles
A fond mysterious fervour unavow'd
Made soft and luminous with hovering smiles,
Like summer lightnings thro' a sleeping cloud)
Sole, Aphroditè found a curious charm
In this grim God-born Mocker of the Gods;
And, waving to Prometheus her white arm,
She beckon'd him with amicable nods.
Submissive to her signal he drew near,
And with a questioning gaze the Goddess eyed.
“Titan, well done!” she whisper'd in his ear;
“What long on Earth I miss'd thou hast supplied.
I love the lion's roar, the ring-dove's coo:
By both alike love's needs are well express'd:
The amorous bull's deep bellowing charms me too.
But why hast thou withheld the last and best
Of all thy gifts from those who, tho' but few,
Most claim on thy solicitude possess'd?”
Prometheus, by astonishment tongue-tied,
An interrogatory eyebrow raised.
“Those larks and nightingales that yonder hide,”
The Goddess answer'd as on Earth she gazed,
“Inaudible and invisible to all!
Darkling they haunt the shadows round them furl'd,
Silent amidst the universal brawl
And babble of the emancipated world.
Yet heaven is husht to hear their minstrelsy:
For these the moon and stars are not too sweet,
For those the sun himself is not too high:
And shall they have no listeners? Hearts that beat
With base emotions find ignoble voice,
Wrath, and Unreason, and Vulgarity
Speak loud. Stupidity and Spite rejoice
In utterance unrestricted. Say, then, why
(Where Folly's fife with Envy's clarion vies)
Must these alone, the darlings of the Spring,
Whose souls are fill'd with lyric ecstacies,
Unheard, or even if heard unheeded, sing?”

The Titan's eye, with a soul-searching glare,
Sounded the secret dwelling undescried
In those small bosoms. “And what seest thou there?”
The Goddess ask'd him. Sighing he replied
“What I should have foreseen!” “But what is that?”
Full on the glorious beauty of her face
Prometheus gazed. “O Goddess, ask not what!
Thou who, supreme in beauty and in grace,
Art by adoring worlds proclaim'd divine,
What kindred could thy confident godhood trace
In a shy loveliness so unlike thine?
A loveliness of its own self afraid,
A Bastard Beauty, fearing to be seen,
Yet fainting to be loved, that seeks the shade!”
The Goddess laugh'd “What doth my Titan mean?
What bastard is he speaking of?” And he,
“Ay, 'tis a Beauty bastard-born, and not
Authentically certified to be,
A Beauty surreptitiously begot
From Heaven's embrace of Earth, and breathing, see,
Between them both in secrecy and shame
An unacknowledged life!” “But what,” said she,
Is this poor Heaven-born Earth-child's luckless name?”
“Its name,” Prometheus sigh'd, “is Poesy.”
“A woman?” “No.” “A man, then?” “Ah, still less!”
The glorious sexual Goddess blush'd outright,
“Is Hermes, then, a father?” “Nay, my guess
“Divines not Hermes.” “Zeus, then? am I right?”
“I doubt...” “If there's a doubt, 'tis Zeus! Suppress
The father's name, however. Well we know
The mother is the love tale's text, of course,
The father but the pretext. Name the mother!”
“But thou wouldst not believe me...” “Worse and worse!
'Tis Herè, then?” “Not Herè.” “There's no other
Of whom the thing's incredible—unless
Perchance 'tis Pallas?” “No alas, not she!”
“And why alas?” With keen suggestiveness,
For sole reply the Titan glowingly
Gazed on the Goddess, till she blush'd again,
“Matchless impertinent!” But he, unmoved,
“Goddess, I warn'd thee that thou wouldst not deign
To give me credit...” “For such pert unproved
Assertion? Fie, to say it to my face!”
“But I said nothing.” “And yet all implied.
What next, I wonder!” “Queen of every grace
And all that's beautiful,” Prometheus cried,
“Tell me thy parents!” “Known to all are they,
Zeus and Dione, both of them divine.”
“They!” cried the Titan, “they thy parents? Nay,
Great and dear Goddess, beauty such as thine
Had nobler birth! Those stupid Gods are not
The true begetters of a deity
Above their own. 'Twas otherwise begot.
Slid from the starry bosom of the sky,
A single drop of sacred ichor pure,
The mystic blood of Uranus, contain'd
In one bright bead thy whole progeniture:
Hid in the heart of Ocean it remain'd
Till there it brought thy wondrous self to birth:
And, even so, one glimpse of Heaven unstain'd,
That fell reflected in a glance from Earth
To Heaven uplifted, this new Beauty bore—
Which hath no sex, no mother, and no sire,
No kin on Earth, no home in Heaven—nay more,
'Tis neither man nor woman, but the soul,
Of the wide world's unsatisfied desire.
And thro' the universe, without a goal,
Its hungering heart must wander high and higher,
Till from the Gods it gain (as I, for those
Poor mortals yonder, snatch'd from Zeus his fire)
The immortality they dread to lose.”

“But this new Beauty, do those bosoms small
Enshrine it?” ask'd the Goddess. “Ah, subdued,”
Prometheus murmur'd bitterly, “by all
The vulgar voices of the multitude
That loves its own monopoly of noise,
No homage hath the homeless one on Earth!
And vainly its unanswer'd song employs
The gift I gave. In darkness and in dearth,
By noise and glare engirt, unheard it sings,
Unseen it stirs. For this, from Zeus I craved,
What he denies me still, the gift of wings—
For birds—birds only—that in some sweet bird
Life's sweetest voice, from Earth's loud hubbub saved,
Might soar in song to Heaven, and there be heard.
Never while man breathes mortal breath shall he,
The Earthborn, hand or foot from Earth withdraw:
For there uplifted must his kingdom be
By agelong labour. Language, there, and Law
Hath he to found; create, for social power
And spacious trade, the Senate and the Mart;
Establish Science in her starry tower,
And mint the glowing miracles of Art.
Such is the task by me for man design'd!
But ever, as on Earth his task he plies,
Higher than foot and hand must heart and mind,
Uplifted o'er the earthly labour, rise.
Let mind and heart, then, heavenward pathways find
Upon the wings of every bird that flies,
While hand and foot stay fast to Earth confined;
Lest Earth should haply lose her fairest prize,
The hand of man: whose fingers five shall bind
Together all that his five wits' rejoice
To wrench from Time's tenacious treasuries,
As, guided onward by a wingèd voice,
Earth's wingless lord to his high future hies!”