University of Virginia Library

PROMETHEUS.

A FRAGMENT.

SCENE.

—A desolate spot, supposed to lie beyond the limits of the habitable earth. Prometheus discovered chained to a rock. Soft Music is heard in the distance, which, as it gradually draws nearer, becomes graver and slower. Chorus of Sylphs on the wing, who enter singing as follows:—
[Perceiving Prometheus.
Prometheus.
Oh, me!

Sylph.
Behold, his teeth unlock, his black lips ope,
As he would speak to us! Oh, thou sad spectacle!

Prometheus.
What now? Is aught forgotten? Hath the God,
With his wise council, hatch'd some new device
To plague the rebel? Is it not enough?
Nay, be not slack; ye 're welcome:—sweet were a change,
If but a change of tortures! But to grow
A motionless rock, fast as my strong prison,
Age after age, till circling suns outnumber
The sands upon the tide-worn beach. No hope,
Or that sad mockery of hope that fools
With dull despair, spanning the infinite!
Torment unmeasurable!

Sylph.
Alas! art thou
The lofty-soul'd Prometheus?

Prometheus.
Ay! the fool
That dared the wrath of Jove, hated of all
That share his feasts and crouch before his throne;
The mighty seer, the wise Prometheus.
Ah, for himself not wise! Poor, poor weak slaves,
Do ye not scorn me? But I cannot shake,
Or ye might see how fearful I am grown,
That nought have more to fear!

Sylph.

Prometheus.
Never till this day
Did life disturb the dense eternity
Of joyless quiet; never skylark's song,
Or storm-bird's prescient scream, or eaglet's cry,
Made vital the gross fog. The very light
Is but an alien that can find no welcome;
So horrible the silent solitude,
That e'en those vile artificers of wrong,
Brute instruments of ghastly cruelty,
Whose grisly faces were too fell to dream of,—
Even they seem'd comfortable when they turn'd
Their backs upon me! Oh, too bitter shame,
I could have wept to beg them tarry longer!

Sylph.
And didst thou weep? And did they leave thee thus?
Oh, pitiless slaves!

Prometheus.
No, I did not weep.
Fall'n as I am, I closed my eyelids hard;
They burn'd like fire, and seem'd as they were full.
But, no! the dew of tears was scorch'd away.
I did not—sure they could not see me—weep.
I bade them farewell, and my voice was firm:
I think it made them tremble, for the sound
Of their departure seem'd to shun my ear,
As they had done some perilous deed in haste,
And dared not look on it. They stole away:
The patter of their feet still fretted me,
Like drops in caves that evermore are ceasing,
Yet never cease, so long they seem'd agoing.
Methought 'twere joy to heave a groan unheard,
Unmark'd of coward scorn. Nay, do not weep,
Or I shall e'en heap shame upon my shame,
And all that yet remains of god in me
Be quench'd in tears. Alas, my gentle sprights!
But now I wish'd to glide into a stream,
And lose myself in ocean's liberty,
Leaving my empty chains a monument
And hollow trophy of the tyrant's rage;
Or be a lump of ice which you might thaw
With the kind warmth of sighs. And hard I strove
To put away my immortality,
Till my collected spirits swell'd my heart
Almost to bursting; but the strife is past.
It is a fearful thing to be a god,
And, like a god, endure a mortal's pain;
To be a show for earth and wondering heaven
To gaze and shudder at! But I will live,
That Jove may know there is a deathless soul
Who ne'er will be his subject. Yes, 'tis past.
The stedfast Fates confess my absolute will,—
Their own co-equal. I have struggled long,
And single-handed, with their triple power,
And most opposing, still been most their slave.
And yet, the will survived: Lord of itself;
Free to disclaim the foreseen forced effect
Of its free workings. Now, we are agreed,
I and my destinies. The total world,—
Above, below, whate'er is seen or known,
And all that men, and all that gods enact,
Hopes, fears, imaginations, purposes;
With joy, and pain, and every pulse that beats
In the great body of the universe,
I give to the eternal sisterhood,
To make my peace withal! And cast this husk,
This hated, mangled, and dishonour'd carcase
Into the balance; so have I redeem'd
My power, birthright, even the changeless mind,
The imperishable essence uncontroll'd.

Sylph.
Strange talk, Prometheus! Every scornful word,
And every bitter boast, may add an age
Of torture to thy doom. We would in truth
That we might melt thy fetters with our sighs!
But what we can, we will. Hold but thy peace;
Or, if thou wilt forbid us, scoff, revile,
But let us beg for thee. Our wilful prayer,
By thee forbidden, leaves thy pride unstain'd,
Thy will unmaster'd. He did love us once:
The mighty Jove did love us. Did? He does.
There is a spell of unresisted power
In wonder-working weak simplicity,
Because it is not fear'd.

Prometheus.
Fair creature, pause!
I am not so ungentle as to chide
The idle chirpings of imprison'd love,
That warbles freely in its narrow cage;
But I would bid the nightingale be dumb,
Or ere her amorous descant should betray
Her covert to the spoiler.

Sylph.
Spare thy fears;
For we have winning wiles and sorceries,
Such incantations as thy sterner wit
Did never dream of. Time hath been ere now
That Jove hath listen'd to our minstrelsy,
Till wrath would seem to drop out of his soul
Like a forgotten thing. Our smallest note,
Catching his ear at any breathing space
Amid his loudest threats, would make him mute
As wondering childhood. True, the fault is great,
But we are many that will plead for thee;
We and our sisters, dwellers in the streams
That murmur blithely to the joyous mood,
And dolefully to sadness. Not a nook
In darkest woods but some of us are there,
To watch the flowers, that else would die unseen.
And some there are that live among the wells
Of hidden waters in the central earth,
Or keep their state in caves where diamonds grow.
And the soft amethyst and emerald
Bask in the streamy and perpetual light
Of that mysterious stone that owes the day
No tribute for its lustre: in whose beam
A thousand gems give out their thousand hues,
As to their proper sun; not, as on earth,
By art and toil enforced. Our sisters, they,
The friendly sprites, to thee, I guess, well known,
Who show the swains where treasured fountains lie;
And those who used to guide thee in thy quest
For the earth's riches, brass and valued gold.

Prometheus.
I well remember, for I know you all,
Where'er ye sojourn, and whatever names
Ye are or shall be called; fairies, or sylphs,
Nymphs of the wood or mountain, flood or field:
Live ye in peace, and long may ye be free
To follow your good minds.

Sylph.
Ah, that we will!
Are we not bold to bid a god repent;
To break upon his slumbers with our prayers;
To watch him day and night; to wear him out
With endless supplication? Perhaps to beg
His kind attention to a pleasant tale;
To cheat him into pity, and conclude
Each story with Prometheus?

Prometheus.
Bold and rash!

Sylph.
He shall not 'scape us. Not a hold secure
In all his empire but our airy host
Shall there prevent him. If in quaint disguise
He roam the earth, or float adown the streams
To tempt or Naiad's love, or woman's eye,
Though watchful Juno were deceived, yet we
Should know him still. Ha! then should be our time.
Surprise him then, there 's nought he can refuse,
Lest we expose him to the laughing sky,
As Vulcan did the War-god. Yet no shape
Of dreadful majesty, nor sacred haunt,
Our close and passionate suit shall overawe;
For he shall hear us in the vocal gloom
Of green Dodona's leafy wilderness,
And where from all apart he oft retires
To brood upon his glory. Ours shall be
The one request that he shall ever hear
Till thou art pardon'd. Can he then be stern,
When all the praise, the sweetness of his reign,
The joy that he was glad to look upon,
The boundless ether's fitful harmony,
And the wild music of the ocean caves,
Is turn'd to sighing and importunate grief
For poor Prometheus?

Prometheus.
Gentle powers, forbear!
'Twere worse than all my former miseries
Should my huge wreck suck down the friendly skiff
That proffer'd aidance. Oh! that Jupiter
Had hurl'd me to the deep of Erebus,
Where neither god nor man might pity me.
Where I might be unthought of as the star
Last outpost of the bright celestial band,
That walks its circuit of a thousand years,
Shooting faint rays at black infinity.
But now shall I become a common tale,
A ruin'd fragment of a worn-out world;
Unchanging record of unceasing change,
Eternal landmark to the tide of time.
Swift generations, that forget each other,
Shall still keep up the memory of my shame
Till I am grown an unbelievëd fable.
Horsed upon hippogriffs, the hags of night
Shall come to visit me; and once an age
Some desperate wight, or wizard, gaunt and grey,
Shall seek this spot by help of hidden lore,
To ask of things forgotten or to come.
But who, beholding me, shall dare defy
The wrath of Jove? Since vain is wisdom's boast,
And impotent the knowledge that o'erleaps
The dusky bourne of time. 'Twere better far
That gods should quaff their nectar merrily,
And men sing out the day like grasshoppers,
So may they haply lull the watchful thunder.

Sylph.
Ah, happy men, whose evil destiny,
Self-baffled, falls! The fellest storm that blows,
The soonest wafts them to an endless calm.
Would we were mortal!

Prometheus.
Wherefore would ye so?
What coy delight awakes to sun or stars
But e'en a thought conveys you to the cradle
Of its young sweetness?

Sylph.
True; but what delight
Shall dare awake while all the spacious world
Is anguish with the terror of thy pains,
And sick for thy affliction?

Prometheus.
You, at least,
Have nought to fear. Your unsubstantial forms
Present no scope to the keen thunderbolt;
Nor adamant can bind your subtle essence,
Which is as fine as scent of violets,
Quick as the warbled notes of melody,
And unconfinable as thoughts of gods.
Then go your way. Forget Prometheus,
And all the woe that he is doom'd to bear;
By his own choice this vile estate preferring
To ignorant bliss and unfelt slavery.

Sylph.
Well, we will go, but never to forget
Thee, nor omit thy cause. 'Tis vain to strive,
For Jove is not one half so merciless
As thou art to thyself. But fare thee well;
Our love is all as stubborn as thy pride,
And swift as firm. For ere yon full-orb'd moon,
That now emerges from that dark confine,
And, scaling slow the steep opposed heaven,
Is red and swoln, assume her silvery veil
And high career of virgin quietness,
Shall we alight upon the topmost peak
Of Jove's Olympus.

Prometheus.
Ye are free to go
Where'er ye will, but not to plead for him
Whom Jove abhors. No, not to pity him,
Or ye may wish your errant range of wing
Were narrow as the evening beetle's rounds.

Sylph.
Not free to pity! What were Jove himself
If pity had not been? Was not he once
A hapless babe, condemn'd to die ere born?
But when he smiled, unweeting of his doom,
And press'd his little hand on Rhea's bosom,
Then gentle pity touch'd his mother's heart,
Till very softness made her bold to brave
The sternness of her hoary husband's ire.
Oh, we have hung upon our motionless wings,
And watch'd her bending sadly o'er his cradle,
Shading his rosy face with her dark locks
In such sweet stillness of o'ermaster'd sorrow,
As if she fear'd a sigh might wake her bird,
Or call his ruthless father to devour him.
And when at length e'en love to love gave way,
And she consented to resign her babe,
To the kind nymph who promised to conceal him,
With all a mother's tender fortitude,
She wash'd the tear-drops from his fair round cheeks
With rain from her own eyes; for she was melted,
Yet nothing shaken. Pity made her firm.
Yet when the Oread virgin turn'd away,
And he, with baby cries, stretch'd out his arms
Over her ivory shoulders, well I ween
She would have given her godhead for a heart
That might have broken. Then we sang our songs,
And soothed her melancholy thoughts with tales
How he should come to be a mighty god,
And blast his foes with fiery thunderbolts.
And day by day, in sunshine or in storm,
We posted 'twixt far Ida and Olympus
To bear her kisses to her growing babe,
And bring back daily tidings of his weal.
He was a lovely child, a boy divine;
And joy'd to listen to the gurgling music
Of Ida's many streams. We little thought
That he would prove so stern and tyrannous.

Prometheus.
'Tis ever so. Full many an innocent flower
Is womb and cradle to a poisonous berry.
Mark the cub lion, stolen from its dam,
Loved playmate of the youngling foresters,
Who laugh to see it shake its maneless neck,
And lash with little tail, and beat the earth
In angry sportiveness. Wait but awhile,
That lion's roar, like the low thunder-groan,
That rumbles under foot before an earthquake,
Shall send an horrible silence o'er the waste,
That every living thing shall send away,
Like shadow'd clouds when sun and wind are striving.

Sylph.
And yet 'twas sweet to listen to his tales,
And watch the strivings of the god within him.
For all his prattle and his childishness
Were godlike, full of hope and prophecy.
And so he waxëd lusty, fair, and tall,
And added sinew changed his baby flesh,
That dimpled erst at every touch of love;
And the loose ringlets of his silky hair
Knotted in crisper curls. His deepening voice
Told like a cavern'd oracle the fall
Of sky-throned dynasties. He grew, and grew,
A star-bright sign of fated empery;
And all conspiring omens led him on
To lofty purpose and pre-eminence.
The mountain eagles, towering in their pride,
Stoop'd at his beck and flock'd about his path,
Like the small birds by wintry famine tamed;
Or with their dusky and expansive wings
Shaded and fann'd him as he slept at noon.
The lightnings danced before him sportively,
And shone innocuous as the pale cold moon
In the clear blue of his celestial eye.
Oft the nigh thunder-clap, o'er Ida's peak,
Chiding the echoes that bemock'd it, paused,
And with a low abasëd voice did homage
To its predestined Lord. But more than all,
With no ambiguous sign, the gifted Themis,
Thy mother, O Prometheus! pointed out
The very spot—a lovely spot it was,
Untrodden then, and wild, without a sound,
Save old Æsopus and his lovely song,
Where the glad sons of the deliver'd earth
Shall yearly raise the multitudinous voice,
Hymning great Jove, the God of Liberty!
Then he grew proud, yet gentle in his pride,
And full of tears, which well became his youth,
As showers do spring. For he was quickly moved,
And joy'd to hear sad stories that we told
Of what we saw on earth, of death and woe,
And all the waste of time. Then would he swear
That he would conquer time; that in his reign
It never should be winter; he would have
No pain, no growing old, no death at all.
And that the pretty damsels, whom we said
He must not love, for they would die and leave him,
Should evermore be young and beautiful;
Or, if they must go, they should come again,
Like as the flowers did. Thus he used to prate,
Till we almost believed him. Oft at eve
We sang the glories of the coming age,
And oft surprised the wanderer in the woods
With bodements sweet of immortality.

Prometheus.
Aye, ye were blest with folly. Who may tell
What strange conceits upon the earth were sown
And gender'd by the fond garrulity
Of your aëreal music? Scatter'd notes,
Half heard, half fancied by the erring sense
Of man, on which they fell like downy seeds
Sown by autumnal winds, grew up, and teem'd
With plenteous madness. Legends marvellous
Of golden ages past, and dreams as wild,
As sweetly wild, of that auspicious birth,
That glorious advent of delight unfading,
Which brooks, and vesper gales, and all divine
Mysterious melodies, in sleep or trance,
Or lonely musing heard, to that blind race
So oft announced. Vain phantasies and hopes,
That shall be hopes for aye, from sire to son
Descending; chaunted in a hundred tongues
By errant minstrels borne from land to land,
And in the storm-bewilder'd bark convey'd
To furthest isles, where yet unheard of man
The surges roar around. The various tribes,
Condemn'd alike to ever-present woe,
With various phantoms of futurity
Shall soothe their weary hour. Beneath the wain
Of slow Bootes, where a mimic moon,
Like fiery ensign of a spiritual host,
Flick'ring and rustling, streams along the sky;
Where the black pine-woods splinter in the blast
That rides tempestuous o'er a wilderness
Of ancient snow, whose ineffectual gleam
Thwarts the pale darkness of the long long night,
And Ocean, slumbering in his icy bed,
Hears not the shrill alarum of the storm.
There Scalds uncouth, in horrid accents screaming,
To clash of arms and outcries terrible,
Tuning their song, shall tell of shadowy realms
Where the brave dead, the mighty of old time,
Urge the fierce hunt, the bloody banquet share,
And drink deep draught nectareous from the skulls
Of slaughter'd foes. But, in the perfumed groves,
Of the soft, languid, dreaming Orient,
And where, 'mid billowy sands, in the broad eye
Of an unprofitable, dewless heaven,
The lonely phœnix roams, shall hoary seers
And pensive shepherds, to believing maids
And meekest mothers, when their babes are hush'd,
Repeat the cherish'd tale at eventide,
Of a new world where peace shall ever dwell.
No armed hoof shall crush the daisy bold
That flaunts it in the sun, nor ambush'd foe
Invade the lurking violet in her bower,
Where beauty fades not, love is ever true,
And life immortal like a summer day.
Oh! happy creatures that, uncursed with love,
Look for a land they know not where, but deem
It may be girdled by the burning waste,
Or safely treasured in the secret ocean;
Or, haply, in the moon, where they shall live
Beneath the sole and everlasting sway
Of him, the babe benign, mighty and wise,
Whose might and wisdom are but innocence
And childish simpleness. Thrice happy they
Who ne'er have found and never can believe
That innocence is mere defect of might—
Simplicity the very craft of Nature,
To hide the piteous void of ignorance,
Till guile is grown of age. Too soon 'tis seen
The great are ever best when least themselves.
The weakest wind that wantons with your curls,
Grown strong would be a scouring hurricane.

Sylph.
Alas! thy words are like this spot, unholy.
Thou could'st not speak them in a better place.

Prometheus.
What place so holy where they are not true?
Ye see no tumult in the host of stars,
No taint of falsehood in the clear blue sky.
Yet there was ancient Uranus enthroned
And treason impious, foul, unnatural,
O'erwhelm'd his stellar and primeval seat
With horror and with shame.

Sylph.

Prometheus.
Ay, they are gone; and he that holds their place
Is like them, strong and blind. What wonder, then,
Though he fall mightily?

Sylph.
The tale is told
Of Uranus and old Hyperion,
And that great mother: huge and sluggish powers
That just awoke from their eternal sleep
To gaze upon the new and vacant world,
Then sank to sleep again. And glad were we
When Saturn and his howling train were sent
To fright their slumbers in the nether void.
But must the youthful thunder-wielder fall,
For whom we sung the song of victory?
Fall from his high, his unapproached throne,
Which never god may touch, nor mortal eye
Pierce through the veil of congregated clouds,
That wave on wave, a dark and soundless sea,
Beneath it ebb and flow? Thus islanded,
It hangs enshrined in clear and crystal air,
And owns no kindred with the lower orb.
Oft have we seen that solitary height,
As gay we glanced athwart the sunny beam,
And wash'd our pinions in the unfall'n dew,
And thought no peril and no change were there.

Prometheus.
'Tis a fair spot, and holy. I have known,
When Rhea's boy hath wonder'd what it was,
That other silver star that staid behind,
When Phosphor left the sky. Yet now he deems
His godhead as the light immutable,
That cares not whether it be morn or even.

Sylph.
There is a dark foreboding in thy speech;
Thine eyes flash fearfully a moody joy
That argues a new downfall. Whence arise
These desperate hopes, that seem to make thee fond
Of lowest misery?

Prometheus.
I know it all—
All ye would ask. But ne'er shall hope be mine
Till the dread secret works its fatal will
In daylight visible, with wrath and scorn,
And ceaseless memory of forgotten things.
Then Jove shall learn what all his sulphurous bolts,
Soul-piercing torments, earthquakes, fiery plagues,
Disease, and hateful, black deformity,
And all confounding shame, shall ne'er persuade
My voice to utter.
[OMITTED]

CONCLUSION.

Ye patient fields, rejoice!
The blessing that ye pray for silently
Is come at last; for ye shall no more fade,
Nor see your flow'rets droop like famishing babes
Upon your comfortless breasts. Close, pent-up woods!
Open your secrets to the prying sun;
For den nor forest dark shall longer hide
The noisome thing. Take heart, poor flutterer!
Nor fear the glitter of the serpent's eye:
No more it shines to harm thee. Sing aloud,
Toss high the shrillness of thy gurgling throat,
And wake the silence of Olympian bowers,
That Jove may hear thee—he, the lovely boy,
The son of Saturn, mightier than his sire,
And gentler far. Thou hollow earth! resound,
And, like the maddening drum of Cybele,
Roll with delight thro' all thy sparry caves
A many-echoed peal. And, oh! ye soft
And wandering elements—ye sighing floods—
And thou, great treasury of light and music—
Embracing air with all your wealth of sounds,
And bodiless hues, and shadows glorified,
Of what on earth is terrible and fair
The fairer effluence and the living form,
With all your music, loud and lustily,
With every dainty joy of sight and smell,
Prepare a banquet meet to entertain
The Lord of Thunder, that hath set you free
From old oppression. Melancholy brook!
That creep'st along so dull and drowsily,
Wailing and waiting in the lazy noon,
In merry madness roar, and whirl, and bound,
Blithe as thy mountain sisters. Ne'er again
Shall summer drought, or icy manacle,
Obstruct thy tuneful liberty. Thou breeze,
That mak'st an organ of the mighty sea,
Obedient to thy wilful phantasies,
Provoke him not to scorn; but soft and low,
As pious maid awakes her aged sire,
On tiptoe stealing, whisper in his ear
The tidings of the young god's victory.
Then shall he rouse him on his rocky bed,
And join the universal hymn with strains
Of solemn thankfulness and deep delight—
The blended sweetness of a thousand waves.
But where is he, the voice intelligent
Of Nature's minstrelsy? Oh, where is man—
That mortal god, that hath no mortal kin
Or like on earth? Shall Nature's orator—
The interpreter of all her mystic strains—
Shall he be mute in Nature's jubilee?
Wilt thou be last in bliss and benison
That wast the first in lamentable wail,
And sole in conscious pain? Haply he fears
The bitter doom, that out of sweetness makes
Its sad memorial. Mortal! fear no more,—
The reign is past of ancient violence;
And Jove hath sworn that time shall not deface,
Nor death destroy, nor mutability
Perplex the truth of love.