Classic Poem

PROMETHEUS.

From high Olympus and the aetherial courts,
Where mighty Zeus our angry king confirms
The Fates' decrees and bends the wills of the gods,
I come: and on the earth step with glad foot.
This variegated ocean-floor of the air,
The changeful circle of fair land, that lies
Heaven's dial, sisterly mirror of night and day:
The wide o'er-wandered plain, this nether world
My truant haunt is, when from jealous eyes
I steal, for hither 'tis I steal, and here
Unseen repair my joy: yet not unseen
Methinks, nor seen unguessed of him I seek.
Rather by swath or furrow, or where the path
Is walled with corn I am found, by trellised vine
Or olive set in banks or orchard trim:
I watch all toil and tilth, farm, field and fold,
And taste the mortal joy; since not in heaven
Among our easeful gods hath facile time
A touch so keen, to wake such love of life
As stirs the frail and careful being, who here,
The king of sorrows, melancholy man,
Bows at his labour, but in heart erect
A god stands, nor for any gift of god
Would barter his immortal-hearted prime.
Could I but win this world from Zeus for mine,
With not a god to vex my happy rule,
I would inhabit here and leave high heaven:
So much I love it and its race of men,
Even as he hates them, hates both them, and me
For loving what he hates, and would destroy me,
Outcast in the scorn of all his cringing crew,
For daring but to save what he would slay:
And me must first destroy. Thus he denieth
My heart's wish, thus my counsel sets at naught,
Which him saved once, when all at stake he stood
Uprisen in rebellion to overthrow
The elderseated Titans, for I that day
Gave him the counsels which his foes despised.
Unhappy they, who had still their blissful seats
Preserved and their Olympian majesty,
Had they been one with me. Alas, my kin!
But he, when he had taken the throne and chained
His foes in wasteful Tartarus, said no more
Where is Prometheus our wise counsellor?
What saith Prometheus? tell us, O Prometheus,
What Fate requires! but waxing confident
And wanton, as a youth first tasting power,
He wrecked the timeless monuments of heaven,
The witness of the wisdom of the gods,
And making all about him new, beyond
Determined to destroy the race of men,
And that create afresh or else have none.
Then his vain mind imagined a device,
And at his bidding all the opposed winds
Blew, and the scattered clouds and furled snows,
From every part of heaven together flying,
He with brute hands in huge disorder heaped:
They with the winds' weight and his angry breath
Were thawed: in cataracts they fell, and earth
In darkness deep and whelmed tempest lay,
Drowned'neath the waters. Yet on the mountain-tops
Some few escaped, and some, thus warned by me,
Made shift to live in vessels which outrode
The season and the fury of the flood.
And when his rain was spent and from clear skies
Zeus looking down upon the watery world,
Beheld these few, the remnant of mankind,
Who yet stood up and breathed; he next withdrew
The seeds of fire, that else had still lain hid
In withered branch and the blue flakes of flint
For man to exact and use, but these withdrawn,
Man with the brutes degraded would be man
No more; and so the tyrant was content.
But I, despised again, again upheld
The weak, and pitying them sent sweet Hope,
Bearer of dreams, enchantress fond and kind,
From heaven descending on the unhindered rays
Of every star, to cheer with visions fair
Their unamending pains. And now this day
Behold I come bearing the seal of all
Which Hope had promised: for within this reed
A prisoner I bring them stolen from heaven,
The flash of mastering fire, and it have borne
So swift to earth, that when yon noontide sun
Rose from the sea at morning I was by,
And unperceived of Hêlios plunged the point
I' the burning axle, and withdrew a tongue
Of breathing flame, which lives to leap on earth
For man the father of all fire to come.
And hither have I brought it even to Argos
Unto king Inachus, him having chosen
Above all mortals to receive my gift:
For he is hopeful, careful, wise, and brave.
He first, when first the floods left bare the land,
Grew warm with enterprise, and gathered men
Together, and disposed their various tasks
For common weal combined; for soon were seen
The long straight channels dwindling on the plain,
Which slow from stagnant pool and wide morass
The pestilent waters to the rivers bore:
Then in the ruined dwellings and old tombs
He dug, unbedding from the wormed ooze
Vessels and tools of trade and husbandry;
Wherewith, all seasonable works restored,
Oil made he and wine anew, and taught mankind
To live not brutally though without fire,
Tending their flocks and herds and weaving wool,
Living on fruit and milk and shepherds' fare,
Till time should bring back flame to smithy and hearth,
Or Zeus relent. Now at these gates I stand,
At this mid hour, when Inachus comes forth
To offer sacrifice unto his foe.
For never hath his faithful zeal forborne
To pay the power, though hard, that rules the world
The smokeless sacrifice; which first today
Shall smoke, and rise at heaven in flame to brave
The baffled god. See here a servant bears
For the cold altar ceremonial wood:
My shepherd's cloak will serve me for disguise.

SERVANT.

With much toil have I hewn these sapless logs.
Pr. But toil brings health, and health is happiness.
Serv. Here's one I know not — nay, how came he here
Unseen by me? I pray thee, stranger, tell me
What would'st thou at the house of Inachus?
Pr. Intruders, friend, and travellers have glib tongues,
Silence will question such.
Serv. If 'tis a message,
To-day is not thy day — who sent thee hither?
Pr. The business of my leisure was well guessed:
But he that sent me hither is I that come.
Serv. I smell the matter — thou would'st serve the house?
Pr. 'Twas for that very cause I fled my own.
Serv. From cruelty or fear of punishment?
Pr. Cruel was my master, for he slew his father.
His punishments thou speakest of are crimes.
Serv. Thou dost well flying one that slew his father.
Pr. Thy lord, they say, is kind.
Serv. Well, thou wilt see.
Thou may'st at once begin — come, give a hand.
Pr. A day of freedom is a day of pleasure;
And what thou doest have I never done,
And understanding not might mar thy work.
Serv. Ay true — there is a right way and a wrong
In laying wood.
Pr. Then let me see thee lay it:
The sight of a skill'd hand will teach an art.
Serv. Thou seest this faggot which I now unbind,
How it is packed within.
Pr. I see the cones
And needles of the fir, which by the wind
In melancholy places ceaselessly
Sighing are strewn upon the tufted floor.
Serv. These took I from a sheltered bank, whereon
The sun looks down at noon; for there is need
The things be dry. These first I spread; and then
Small sticks that snap i' the hand.
Pr. Such are enough
To burden the slow flight of labouring rooks,
When on the leafless tree-tops in young March
Their glossy herds assembling soothe the air
With cries of solemn joy and cawings loud.
And such the long-necked herons will bear to mend
Their airy platform, when the loving spring
Bids them take thought for their expected young.
Serv. See even so I cross them and cross them so:
Larger and by degrees a steady stack
Have built, whereon the heaviest logs may lie:
And all of sun-dried wood: and now 'tis done.
Pr. And now 'tis done, what means it now 'tis done?
Serv. Well, thus 'tis rightly done: but why 'tis so
I cannot tell, nor any man here knows;
Save that our master when he sacrificeth,
As thou wilt hear anon, speaketh of fire;
And fire he saith is good for gods and men;
And the gods have it and men have it not:
And then he prays the gods to send us fire;
And we, against they send it, must have wood
Laid ready thus as I have shewn thee here.
Pr. To-day he sacrificeth?
Serv. Ay, this noon.
Hark! hear'st thou not? they come. The solemn flutes
Warn us away; we must not here be seen
In these our soiled habits, yet may stand
Where we may hear and see and not be seen.

Enter CHORUS, and from the palace I NACHUS bearing cakes: he comes to stand behind the altar .

CHORUS.

God Heaven!
We praise thee, Zeus most high,
To whom by eternal Fate was given
The range and rule of the sky;
When thy lot, first of three
Leapt out, as sages tell,
And won Olympus for thee,
Therein for ever to dwell:
But the next with the barren sea
To grave Poseid├┤n fell,
And left fierce Hades his doom, to be
The lord and terror of hell.
(2) Thou sittest for aye
Encircled in azure bright,
Regarding the path of the sun by day,
And the changeful moon by night:
Attending with tireless ears
To the song of adoring love,
With which the separate spheres
Are voiced that turn above:
And all that is hidden under
The clouds thy footing has furl'd
Fears the hand that holdeth the thunder,
The eye that looks on the world.

Semichorus of youths.

Of all the isles of the sea
Is Crete most famed in story:
Above all mountains famous to me
Is Ida and crowned with glory.
There guarded of Heaven and Earth
Came Rhea at fall of night
To hide a wondrous birth
From the Sire's unfathering sight.
The halls of Cronos rang
With omens of coming ill,
And the mad Curêtes danced and sang
Adown the slopes of the hill.

Then all the peaks of Gnossus kindled red
Beckoning afar unto the sinking sun,
He thro' the vaporous west plunged to his bed,
Sunk, and the day was done.
But they, though he was fled,
Such light still held, as oft
Hanging in air aloft,
At eve from shadowed ship
The Egyptian sailor sees:
Or like the twofold tip
That o'er the topmost trees
Flares on Parnassus, and the Theban dames
Quake at the ghostly flames.

Then friendly night arose
To succour Earth, and spread
Her mantle o'er the snows
And quenched their rosy red;
But in the east upsprings
Another light on them,
Selêne with white wings
And hueless diadem.
Little could she befriend
Her father's house and state,
Nor her weak beams defend
Hyperion from his fate.
Only where'er she shines,
In terror looking forth,
She sees the wailing pines
Stoop to the bitter North:
Or searching twice or thrice
Along the rocky walls,
She marks the columned ice
Of frozen waterfalls:
But still the darkened cave
Grew darker as she shone,
Wherein was Rhea gone
Her child to bear and save.

Then danced the Dactyls and Curêtes wild,
And drowned with yells the cries of mother and child;
Big-armed Damnameneus gan prance and shout:
And burly Acmon struck the echoes out:
And Kermis leaped and howled: and Titias pranced:
And broad Cyllenus tore the air and danced:
While deep within the shadowed cave at rest
Lay Rhea, with her babe upon her breast.

INACHUS.

If any here there be whose impure hands
Among pure hands, or guilty heart among
Our guiltless hearts be stained with blood or wrong,
Let him depart!
If there be any here in whom high Zeus
Seeing impiety might turn away,
Now from our sacrifice and from his sin
Let him depart!

Semichorus of maidens.

I have chosen to praise
Hêra the wife, and bring
A hymn for the feast on marriage days
To the wife of the gods' king.
How on her festival
The gods had loving strife,
Which should give of them all
The fairest gift to the wife.
But Earth said, Fair to see
Is mine and yields to none,
I have grown for her joy a sacred tree,
With apples of gold thereon.

Then Hêra, when she heard what Earth had given,
Smiled for her joy, and longed and came to see:
On dovewings flying from the height of heaven,
Down to the golden tree:
As tired birds at even
Come flying straight to house
On their accustomed boughs.
'Twas where, on tortured hands
Bearing the mighty pole,
Devoted Atlas stands:
And round his bowed head roll
Day-light and night, and stars unmingled dance,
Nor can he raise his glance.

She saw the rocky coast
Whereon the azured waves
Are laced in foam, or lost
In water-lighted caves;
The olive island where,
Amid the purple seas
Night unto Darkness bare
The four Hesperides:
And came into the shade
Of Atlas, where she found
The garden Earth had made
And fenced with groves around.
And in the midst it grew
Alone, the priceless stem,
As careful, clear and true
As graving on a gem.
Nature had kissed Art
And borne a child to stir
With jealousy the heart
Of heaven's Artificer.
From crown to swelling root
It mocked the goddess' praise,
The green enamelled sprays
The emblazoned golden fruit.

And 'neath the tree, with hair and zone unbound,
The fair Hesperides aye danced around,
And Ægle danced and sang " O welcome, Queen!"
And Erytheia sang " The tree is green!"
And Hestia danced and sang " The fruit is gold!"
And Arethusa sang " Fair Queen, behold!"
And all joined hands and danced about the tree,
And sang " O Queen, we dance and sing for thee!"

In . If there be any here who has complaint
Against our rule or claim or supplication,
Now in the name of Zeus let it appear,
Now let him speak!

Prometheus reenters.

Pr . All hail, most worthy king, such claim have I.
In . May grace be with thee, stranger; speak thy mind.
Pr . To Argos, king of Argos, at thy house
I bring long journeying to an end this hour,
Bearing no idle message for thine ears.
For know that far thy fame has reached, and men
That ne'er have seen thee tell that thou art set
Upon the throne of virtue, that good-will
And love thy servants are, that in thy land
Joy, honour, trust and modesty abide
And drink the air of peace, that kings must see
Thy city, would they know their peoples' good
And stablish them therein by wholesome laws.
But one thing mars the tale, for o'er thy lands
Travelling I have not seen from morn till eve,
Either from house or farm or labourer's cot,
In any village, nor this town of Argos
A blue-wreathed smoke arise: the hearths are cold,
This altar cold: I see the wood and cakes
Unbaken — O king, where is the fire?
In . If hither, stranger, thou wert come to find
That which thou findest wanting, join with us
Now in our sacrifice, take food within,
And having learnt our simple way of life
Return unto thy country whence thou camest.
But hast thou skill or knowledge of this thing,
How best it may be sought, or by what means
Hope to be reached, O speak! I wait to hear.
Pr . There is, O king, fire on the earth this day.
In . On earth there is fire thou sayest!
Pr .There is fire.
In . On earth this day!
Pr . There is fire on earth this day.
In . This is a sacred place, a solemn hour,
Thy speech is earnest: yet even if thou speak truth,
O welcome messenger of happy tidings,
And though I hear aright, yet to believe
Is hard: thou canst not know what words thou speakest
Into what ears: they never heard before
This sound but in old tales of happier times,
In sighs of prayer and faint unhearted hope:
Maybe they heard not rightly, speak again!
Pr . There is, O king, fire on the earth this day.
In . Yes, yes, again. Now let sweet Music blab
Her secret and give o'er; here is a trumpet
That mocks her method. Yet 'tis but the word.
Maybe thy fire is not the fire I seek;
Maybe though thou didst see it, now 'tis quenched,
Or guarded out of reach: speak yet again
And swear by heaven's truth is there fire or no;
And if there be, what means may make it mine.
Pr . There is, O king, fire on the earth this day:
But not as thou dost seek it to be found.
In . How seeking wrongly shall I seek aright?
Pr . Thou prayest here to Zeus, and him thou callest
Almighty, knowing he could grant thy prayer:
That if 'twere but his will, the journeying sun
Might drop a spark into thine outstretched hand:
That at his breath the splashing mountain brooks
That fall from Orneae, and cold Lerne's pool
Would change their element, and their chill streams
Bend in their burning banks a molten flood:
That at his word so many messengers
Would bring thee fire from heaven, that not a hearth
In all thy land but straight would have a god
To kneel and fan the flame: and yet to him,
It is to him thou prayest.
In . Therefore to him.
Pr . Is this thy wisdom, king, to sow thy seed
Year after year in this unsprouting soil?
Hast thou not proved and found the will of Zeus
A barren rock for man with prayer to plough?
In . His anger be averted! we judge not god
Evil, because our wishes please him not.
Oft our shortsighted prayers to heaven ascending
Ask there our ruin, and are then denied
In kindness above granting: were't not so,
Scarce could we pray for fear to pluck our doom
Out of the merciful withholding hands.
Pr . Why then provokest thou such great goodwill
In long denial and kind silence shown?
In . Fie, fie! Thou lackest piety: the god's denial
Being nought but kindness, there is hope that he
Will make that good which is not: — or if indeed
Good be withheld in punishment, 'tis well
Still to seek on and pray that god relent.
Pr . O Sire of Argos, Zeus will not relent.
In . Yet fire thou sayst is on the earth this day.
Pr . Not of his knowledge nor his gift, O king.
In . By kindness of what god then has man fire?
Pr . I say but on the earth unknown to Zeus.
In . How boastest thou to know, not of his knowledge?
Pr . I boast not: he that knoweth not may boast.
In . Thy daring words bewilder sense with sound. Pr . I thought to find thee ripe for daring deeds.
In . And what the deed for which I prove unripe?
Pr . To take of heaven's fire.
In . And were I ripe,
What should I dare, beseech you?
Pr . The wrath of Zeus.
In . Madman, pretending in one hand to hold
The wrath of god and in the other fire.
Pr . Thou meanest rather holding both in one.
In . Both impious art thou and incredible.
Pr . Yet impious only till thou dost believe.
In . And what believe? Ah, if I could believe!
It was but now thou saidst that there was fire,
And I was near believing; I believed:
Now to believe were to be mad as thou.
Chorus . He may be mad and yet say true — maybe
The heat of prophecy like a strong wine
Shameth his reason with exultant speech.
Pr . Thou say'st I am mad, and of my sober words
Hast called those impious which thou fearest true,
Those which thou knowest good, incredible.
Consider ere thou judge: be first assured
All is not good for man that seems god's will.
See, on thy farming skill, thy country toil
Which bends to aid the willing fruits of earth,
And would promote the seasonable year,
The face of nature is not always kind:
And if thou search the sum of visible being
To find thy blessing featured, 'tis not there:
Her best gifts cannot brim the golden cup
Of expectation which thine eager arms
Lift to her mouthed horn — what then is this
Whose wide capacity outbids the scale
Of prodigal beauty, so that the seeing eye
And hearing ear, retiring unamazed
Within their quiet chambers, sit to feast
With dear imagination, nor look forth
As once they did upon the varying air?
Whence is the fathering of this desire
Which mocks at fated circumstance? nay though
Obstruction lie as cumbrous as the mountains,
Nor thy particular hap hath armed desire
Against the brunt of evil, — yet not for this
Faints man's desire: it is the unquenchable
Original cause, the immortal breath of being:
Nor is there any spirit on Earth astir,
Nor 'neath the airy vault, nor yet beyond
In any dweller in far-reaching space,
Nobler or dearer than the spirit of man:
That spirit which lives in each and will not die,
That wooeth beauty, and for all good things
Urgeth a voice, or in still passion sigheth,
And where he loveth draweth the heart with him.
Hast thou not heard him speaking oft and oft,
Prompting thy secret musing and now shooting
His feathered fancies, or in cloudy sleep
Piling his painted dreams? O hark to him!
For else if folly shut his joyous strength
To mope in her dark prison without praise,
The hidden tears with which he wails his wrong
Will sour the fount of life. O hark to him!
Him mayst thou trust beyond the things thou seest.
For many things there be upon this earth
Unblest and fallen from beauty, to mislead
Man's mind, and in a shadow justify
The evil thoughts and deeds that work his ill;
Fear, hatred, lust and strife, which, if man question
The heavenborn spirit within him, are not there.
Yet are they bold of face, and Zeus himself,
Seeing that Mischief held her head on high,
Lest she should go beyond his power to quell
And draw the inevitable Fate that waits
On utmost ill, himself preventing Fate
Hasted to drown the world, and now would crush
Thy little remnant: but among the gods
Is one whose love and courage stir for thee;
Who being of manlike spirit, by many shifts
Has stayed the hand of the enemy, who crieth
Thy world is not destroyed, thy good shall live:
Thou hast more power for good than Zeus for ill,
More courage, justice, more abundant art,
More love, more joy, more reason: though around thee
Rank-rooting evil bloom with poisonous crown,
Though wan and dolorous and crooked things
Have made their home with thee, thy good shall live.
Know thy desire: and know that if thou seek it,
And seek, and seek, and fear not, thou shalt find.
Sem. (youths) . Is this a god that speaketh thus?
Sem. (maidens) . He speaketh as a man
In love or great affliction yields his soul.
In. Thou, whencesoe'er thou comest, whoe'er thou art,
Who breakest on our solemn sacrifice
With solemn words, I pray thee not depart
Till thou hast told me more. This fire I seek
Not for myself, whose thin and silvery hair
Tells that my toilsome age nears to its end,
But for my children and the aftertime,
For great the need thereof, wretched our state;
Nay, set by what has been, our happiness
Is very want, so that what now is not
Is but the measure of what yet may be.
And first are barest needs, which well I know
Fire would supply, but I have hope beyond,
That Nature in recovering her right
Would kinder prove to man who seeks to learn
Her secrets and unfold the cause of life.
So tell me, if thou knowest, what is fire?
Doth earth contain it? or, since from the sun
Fire reaches us, since in the glimmering stars
And pallid moon, in lightning, and the glance
Of tracking meteors that at nightfall show
How in the air a thousand sightless things
Travel, and ever on their windswift course
Flame when they list and into darkness go, —
Since in all these a fiery nature dwells,
Is fire an airy essence, a thing of heaven,
That, could we poise it, were an alien power
To make our wisdom less, our wonder more?
Pr. Thy wish to know is good, and happy is he
Who thus from chance and change has launched his mind
To dwell for ever with undisturbed truth.
This high ambition doth not prompt his hand
To crime, his right and pleasure are not wronged
By folly of his fellows, nor his eye
Dimmed by the griefs that move the tears of men.
Son of the earth, and citizen may be
Of Argos or of Athens and her laws,
But still the eternal nature, where he looks,
O'errules him with the laws which laws obey,
And in her heavenly city enrols his heart.
In. Thus ever have I held of happiness,
The child of heavenly truth, and thus have found it
In prayer and meditation and still thought,
And thus my peace of mind based on a floor
That doth not quaver like the joys of sense:
Those I possess enough in seeing my slaves
And citizens enjoy, having myself
Tasted for once and put their sweets away.
But of that heavenly city, of which thou sayest
Her laws o'errule us, have I little learnt,
For when my wandering spirit hath dared alone
The unearthly terror of her voiceless halls,
She hath fallen from delight, and without guide
Turned back, and from her errand fled for fear.
Pr. Think not that thou canst all things know, nor deem
Such knowledge happiness: the all-knowing Fates
No pleasure have, who sit eternally
Spinning the unnumbered threads that Time hath woven,
And weaves, upgathering in his furthest house
To store from sight; but what 'tis joy to learn
Or use to know, that may'st thou ask of right.
In. Then tell me, for thou knowest, what is fire?
Pr. Know then, O king, that this fair earth of men,
The Olympus of the gods, and all the heavens
Are lesser kingdoms of the boundless space
Wherein Fate rules; they have their several times,
Their seasons and the limit of their thrones,
And from the nature of eternal things
Springing, themselves are changed; even as the trees
Or birds or beasts of earth, which now arise
To being, now in turn decay and die.
The heaven and earth thou seest, for long were held
By Fire, a raging power, to whom the Fates
Decreed a slow diminishing old age,
But to his daughter, who is that gentle goddess,
Queen of the clear and azure firmament,
In heaven called Hygra, but by mortals Air,
To her, the child of his slow doting years,
Was given a beauteous youth, not long to outlast
His life, but be the pride of his decay,
And win to gentler sway his lost domains.
And when the day of time arrived, when Air
Took o'er from her decrepit sire the third
Of the Sun's kingdoms, the one-mooned earth,
Straight came she down to her inheritance.
Gaze on the sun with thine unshaded eye
And shrink from what she saw. Forests of fire
Whose waving trunks, sucking their fuel, reared
In branched flame roaring, and their torrid shades
Aye underlit with fire. The mountains lifted
And fell and followed like a running sea,
And from their swelling flanks spumed froth of fire;
Or, like awakening monsters, mighty mounds
Rose on the plain awhile.
Sem. (maidens) . He discovers a foe.
Sem. (youths) . An enemy he paints.
Pr. These all she quenched,
Or charmed their fury into the dens and bowels
Of earth to smoulder, there the vital heat
To hold for her creation, which then — to her aid
Summoning high Reason from his home in heaven, —
She wrought anew upon the temperate lands.
Sem. (maidens) . 'Twas well Air won this kingdom of her sire.
Sem. (youths) . Now say how made she green this home of fire.
Pr. The waters first she brought, that in their streams
And pools and seas innumerable things
Brought forth, from whence she drew the fertile seeds
Of trees and plants, and last of footed life,
That wandered forth, and roaming to and fro,
The rejoicing earth peopled with living sound.
Reason advised, and Reason praised her toil;
Which when she had done she gave him thanks, and said,
" Fair comrade, since thou praisest what is done,
Grant me this favour ere thou part from me:
Make thou one fair thing for me, which shall suit
With what is made, and be the best of all."
'Twas evening, and that night Reason made man.
Sem. (maidens) . Children of Air are we, and live by fire.
Sem. (youths) . The sons of Reason dwelling on the earth.
Sem. (maidens) . Folk of a pleasant kingdom held between
Fire's reign of terror and the latter day
When dying, soon in turn his child must die.
Sem. (youths) . Having a wise creator, above time
Or youth or change, from whom our kind inherit
The grace and pleasure of the eternal gods.
In. But how came gods to rule this earth of Air?
Pr. They also were her children who first ruled,
Cronos, Iapetus, Hyperion,
Theia and Rhea, and other mighty names
That are but names — whom Zeus drave out from heaven,
And with his tribe sits on their injured thrones.
In. There is no greater god in heaven than he.
Pr. Nor none more cruel nor more tyrannous.
In. But what can man against the power of god?
Pr. Doth not man strive with him? thyself dost pray.
In. That he may pardon our contrarious deeds.
Pr. Alas! alas! what more contrarious deed,
What greater miracle of wrong than this,
That man should know his good and take it not?
To what god wilt thou pray to pardon this?
In vain was reason given, if man therewith
Shame truth, and name it wisdom to cry down
The unschooled promptings of his best desire.
The beasts that have no speech nor argument
Confute him, and the wild hog in the wood
That feels his longing, hurries straight thereto,
And will not turn his head.
In. How mean'st thou this?
Pr. Thou hast desired the good, and now canst feel
How hard it is to kill the heart's desire.
In. Shall Inachus rise against Zeus, as he
Rose against Cronos and made war in heaven?
Pr. I say not so, yet, if thou didst rebel,
The tongue that counselled Zeus should counsel thee.
Sem. (maidens) . This is strange counsel.
Sem. (youths) . He is not
A counsellor for gods or men.
In. O that I knew where I might counsel find,
That one were sent, nay, were't the least of all
The myriad messengers of heaven, to me!
One that should say " This morn I stood with Zeus,
He hath heard thy prayer and sent me: ask a boon,
What thing thou wilt, it shall be given thee."
Pr. What wouldst thou say to such a messenger?
In. No need to ask then what I now might ask,
How 'tis the gods, if they have care for mortals,
Slubber our worst necessities — and the boon,
No need to tell him that.
Pr. Now, king, thou seest
Zeus sends no messenger, but I am here.
In. Thy speech is hard, and even thy kindest words
Unkind. If fire thou hast, in thee 'tis kind
To proffer it: but thou art more unkind
Yoking heaven's wrath therewith. Nay, and how knowest thou
Zeus will be angry if I take of it?
Thou art a prophet: ay, but of the prophets
Some have been taken in error, and honest time
Has honoured many with forgetfulness.
I'll make this proof of thee; Show me thy fire —
Nay, give 't me now — if thou be true at all,
Be true so far: for the rest there's none will lose,
Nor blame thee being false — where is thy fire?
Pr. O rather, had it thus been mine to give,
I would have given it thus: not adding aught
Of danger or diminishment or loss;
So strong is my goodwill; nor less than this
My knowledge, but in knowledge all my power.
Yet since wise guidance with a little means
Can more than force unminded, I have skill
To conjure evil and outcompass strength.
Now give I thee my best, a little gift
To work a world of wonder; 'tis thine own
Of long desire, and with it I will give
The cunning of invention and all arts
In which thy hand instructed may command,
Interpret, comfort, or ennoble nature;
With all provision that in wisdom is,
And what prevention in foreknowledge lies.
In. Great is the gain.
Pr. O king, the gain is thine,
The penalty I more than share.
In. Enough,
I take thy gift; nor hast thou stood more firm
To every point of thy strange chequered tale,
Revealing, threatening, offering more and more,
And never all, than I to this resolve.
Pr. I knew thy heart would fail not at the hour.
In. Nay, failed I now, what were my years of toil
More than the endurance of a harnessed brute,
Flogged to his daily work, that cannot view
The high design to which his labour steps?
And I of all men were dishonoured most
Shrinking in fear, who never shrank from toil,
And found abjuring, thrusting stiffly back,
The very gift for which I stretched my hands.
What though I suffer? are these wintry years
Of growing desolation to be held
As cherishable as the suns of spring?
Nay, only joyful can they be in seeing
Long hopes accomplished, long desires fulfilled.
And since thou hast touched ambition on the side
Of nobleness, and stirred my proudest hope,
And wilt fulfil this, shall I count the cost?
Rather decay will triumph, and cold death
Be lapped in glory, seeing strength arise
From weakness, from the tomb go forth a flame.
Pr. 'Tis well; thou art exalted now, the grace
Becomes thy valiant spirit.
In. Lo! on this day
Which hope despaired to see, hope manifests
A vision bright as were the dreams of youth;
When life was easy as a sleeper's faith
Who swims in the air and dances on the sea,
When all the good that scarce by toil is won,
Or not at all is won, is as a flower
Growing in plenty to be plucked at will:
Is it a dream again or is it truth,
This vision fair of Greece inhabited?
A fairer sight than all fair Iris sees,
Footing her airy arch of colours spun
From Ida to Olympus, when she stays
To look on Greece and thinks the sight is fair,
Far fairer now, clothed with the works of men.
Pr. Ay, fairer far: for nature's varied pleasaunce
Without man's life is but a desert wild,
Which most, where most she mocks him, needs his aid.
She knows her silence sweeter when it girds
His murmurous cities, her wide wasteful curves
Larger beside his economic line;
Or what can add a mystery to the dark,
As doth his measured music when it moves
With rhythmic sweetness through the void of night?
Nay, all her loveliest places are but grounds
Of vantage, where with geometric hand,
True square and careful compass he may come
To plan and plant and spread abroad his towers,
His gardens, temples, palaces and tombs.
And yet not all thou seest, with tranced eye
Looking upon the beauty that shall be,
The temple-crowned heights, the walled towns,
Farms and cool summer seats, nor the broad ways
That bridge the rivers and subdue the mountains,
Nor all that travels on them, pomp or war
Or needful merchandise, nor all the sails
Piloting over the wind-dappled blue
Of the summer-soothed Ægean, to thy mind
Can picture what shall be: these are the face
And form of beauty, but her heart and life
Shall they be who shall see it, born to shield
A happier birthright with intrepid arms,
To tread down tyranny and fashion forth
A virgin wisdom to subdue the world,
To build for passion an eternal song,
To shape her dreams in marble, and so sweet
Their speech, that envious Time hearkening shall stay
In fear to snatch, and hide his rugged hand.
Now is the birthday of thy conquering youth,
O man, and lo! thy priest and prophet stand
Beside the altar and have blessed the day.
In. Ay, blessed be this day. Where is thy fire?
Or is aught else to do, ere I may take?
Pr. This was my message, speak and there is fire,
In. There shall be fire. Await me here awhile.
I go to acquaint my house, and bring them forth.

Chorus.

Hearken, O Argos, hearken!
There will be fire.
And thou, O Earth, give ear!
There will be fire.

Sem. ( maidens ). Who shall be sent to fetch this fire for the king?
Sem. ( youths ). Shall we put forth in boats to reap,
And shall the waves for harvest yield
The rootless flames that nimbly leap
Upon their ever-shifting field?
Sem. ( maidens ). Or we in olive-groves go shake
And beat the fruiting sprays, till all
The silv'ry glitter which they make
Beneath into our baskets fall?
Sem. ( youths ). To bind in sheaves and bear away
The white unshafted darts of day?
Sem. ( maidens ). And from the shadow one by one
Pick up the playful oes of sun?
Sem. ( youths ). Or wouldst thou mine a passage deep
Until the darksome fire is found,
Which prisoned long in seething sleep
Vexes the caverns underground?
Sem. ( maidens ). Or bid us join our palms perchance,
To cup the slant and chinked beam,
Which mounting morn hath sent to dance
Across our chamber while we dream?
Sem. ( youths ). Say whence and how shall we fetch this fire for the king?
Our hope is impatient of vain debating.
Sem. ( maidens ). My heart is stirred at the name of the wondrous thing,
And trembles awaiting.

ODE.

A coy inquisitive spirit, the spirit of wonder,
Possesses the child in his cradle, when mortal things
Are new, yet a varied surface and nothing under.
It busies the mind on trifles and toys and brings
Her grasp from nearer to further, from smaller to greater,
And slowly teaches flight to her fledgeling wings.

Where'er she flutters and falls surprises await her:
She soars, and beauty's miracles open in sight,
The flowers and trees and beasts of the earth; and later
The skies of day, the moon and the stars of night;
'Neath which she scarcely venturing goes demurely,
With mystery clad, in the awe of depth and height.

O happy for still unconscious, for ah! how surely,
How soon and surely will disenchantment come,
When first to herself she boasts to walk securely,
And drives the master spirit away from his home;

Seeing the marvellous things that make the morning
Are marvels of every-day, familiar, and some
Have lost with use, like earthly robes, their adorning,
As earthly joys the charm of a first delight,
And some are fallen from awe to neglect and scorning;
Until —

O tarry not long, dear needed sprite!
Till thou, though uninvited, with fancy returnest
To hallow beauty and make the dull heart bright:
To inhabit again thy gladdened kingdom in earnest;
Wherein —
from the smile of beauty afar forecasting
The pleasure of god, thou livest at peace and yearnest
With wonder everlasting.