Death grew like sleep.
He taught the implicated orbits woven
Of the wide-wandering stars, and how the sun
Changes his lair, and by what secret spell
90The pale moon is transformed, when her broad eye
Gazes not on the interlunar sea;
He taught to rule, as life directs the limbs,
The tempest-winged chariots of the Ocean,
And the Celt knew the Indian. Cities then
95Were built, and through their snow-like columns flowed
The warm winds, and the azure aether shone,
And the blue sea and shadowy hills were seen.
Such, the alleviations of his state,
Prometheus gave to man—for which he hangs
100Withering in destined pain: but who rains down
Evil, the immedicable plague, which, while
Man looks on his creation like a God
And sees that it is glorious, drives him on
The wreck of his own will, the scorn of Earth,
105The outcast, the abandoned, the alone?
Not Jove: while yet his frown shook Heaven, aye, when
His adversary from adamantine chains
Cursed him, he trembled like a slave. Declare
Who is his master? Is he too a slave?
Demogorgon
110All spirits are enslaved which serve things evil:
Thou knowest if Jupiter be such or no.
Asia
Whom called’st thou God?
Demogorgon
I spoke but as ye speak,
For Jove is the supreme of living things.
Asia
Who is the master of the slave?
Demogorgon
If the Abysm
115Could vomit forth its secrets:—but a voice
Is wanting, the deep truth is imageless;
For what would it avail to bid thee gaze
On the revolving world? what to bid speak
Fate, Time, Occasion, Chance and Change? To these
120All things are subject but eternal Love.
Asia
So much I asked before, and my heart gave
The response thou hast given; and of such truths
Each to itself must be the oracle.
One more demand; and do thou answer me
125As my own soul would answer, did it know
That which I ask. Prometheus shall arise
Henceforth the Sun of this rejoicing world:
When shall the destined hour arrive?
Demogorgon
Behold!
Asia
The rocks are cloven, and through the purple night
130I see cars drawn by rainbow-winged steeds
Which trample the dim winds: in each there stands
A wild-eyed charioteer, urging their flight.
Some look behind, as fiends pursued them there,
And yet I see no shapes but the keen stars:
135Others, with burning eyes, lean forth, and drink
With eager lips the wind of their own speed,
As if the thing they loved fled on before,
And now, even now, they clasped it. Their bright locks
Stream like a comet’s flashing hair: they all
140Sweep onward.
Demogorgon
These are the immortal Hours,
Of whom thou didst demand. One waits for thee.
Asia
A spirit with a dreadful countenance
Checks its dark chariot by the craggy gulf.
Unlike thy brethren, ghastly charioteer,
145What art thou? Whither wouldst thou bear me? Speak!
Spirit
I am the shadow of a destiny
More dread than is my aspect: ere yon planet
Has set, the Darkness which ascends with me
Shall wrap in lasting night Heaven’s kingless throne.
Asia
150What meanest thou?
Panthea
That terrible shadow floats
Up from its throne, as may the lurid smoke
Of earthquake-ruined cities o’er the sea.
Lo! it ascends the Car … the coursers fly
Terrified: watch its path among the stars
155Blackening the night!
Asia
Thus I am answered: strange!
Panthea
See, near the verge, another chariot stays;
An ivory shell inlaid with crimson fire,
Which comes and goes within its sculptured rim
Of delicate strange tracery; the young Spirit
160That guides it has the dove-like eyes of hope;
How its soft smiles attracts the soul!—as light
Lures winged insects through the lampless air.
Spirit
My coursers are fed with the lightning,
They drink of the whirlwind’s stream,
165And when the red morning is bright’ning
They bathe in the fresh sunbeam;
They have strength for their swiftness, I deem:
Then ascend with me, Daughter of Ocean.
I desire—and their speed makes night kindle;
170 I fear—they outstrip the Typhoon;
Ere the cloud piled on Atlas can dwindle
We encircle the earth and the moon:
We shall rest from long labours at noon:
Then ascend with me, Daughter of Ocean.
Scene v
The Car pauses within a Cloud on the Top of a snowy Mountain. ASIA, PANTHEA, and the SPIRIT OF THE HOUR.
Spirit
On the brink of the night and the morning
My coursers are wont to respire;
But the Earth has just whispered a warning
That their flight must be swifter than fire:
5 They shall drink the hot speed of desire!
Asia
Thou breathest on their nostrils, but my breath
Would give them swifter speed.
Spirit
Alas! it could not.
Panthea
Oh Spirit! pause, and tell whence is the light
Which fills this cloud—the sun is yet unrisen.
Spirit
10The sun will rise not until noon. Apollo
Is held in Heaven by wonder; and the light
Which fills this vapour, as the aërial hue
Of fountain-gazing roses fills the water,
Flows from thy mighty sister.
Panthea
Yes, I feel …
Asia
15What is it with thee, sister? Thou art pale.
Panthea
How thou art changed! I dare not look on thee;
I feel but see thee not. I scarce endure
The radiance of thy beauty. Some good change
Is working in the elements, which suffer
20Thy presence thus unveiled. The Nereids tell
That on the day when the clear hyaline
Was cloven at thy uprise, and thou didst stand
Within a veined shell, which floated on
Over the calm floor of the crystal sea,
25Among the Aegean isles, and by the shores
Which bear thy name, love, like the atmosphere
Of the sun’s fire filling the living world,
Burst from thee, and illumined Earth and Heaven
And the deep ocean and the sunless caves
30And all that dwells within them; till grief cast
Eclipse upon the soul from which it came:
Such art thou now; nor is it I alone,
Thy sister, thy companion, thine own chosen one,
But the whole world which seeks thy sympathy.
35Hearest thou not sounds i’ the air which speak the love
Of all articulate beings? Feelest thou not
The inanimate winds enamoured of thee? List!
[Music
Asia
Thy words are sweeter than aught else but his
Whose echoes they are: yet all love is sweet,
40Given or returned. Common as light is love,
And its familiar voice wearies not ever.
Like the wide Heaven, the all-sustaining air,
It makes the reptile equal to the God:
They who inspire it most are fortunate,
45As I am now; but those who feel it most
Are happier still, after long sufferings,
As I shall soon become.
Panthea
List! Spirits speak.
Voice (in the air, singing)
Life of Life! thy lips enkindle
With their love the breath between them;
50And thy smiles before they dwindle
Make the cold air fire; then screen them
In those looks, where whoso gazes
Faints, entangled in their mazes.
Child of Light! thy limbs are burning
55 Through the vest which seems to hide them
As the radiant lines of morning
Through the clouds ere they divide them;
And this atmosphere divinest
Shrouds thee wheresoe’er thou shinest.
60Fair are others;—none beholds thee,
But thy voice sounds low and tender
Like the fairest—for it folds thee
From the sight, that liquid splendour,
And all feel, yet see thee never,
65As I feel now, lost for ever!
Lamp of Earth! where’er thou movest
Its dim shapes are clad with brightness,
And the souls of whom thou lovest
Walk upon the winds with lightness,
70Till they fail, as I am failing,
Dizzy, lost … yet unbewailing!
Asia
My soul is an enchanted boat
Which, like a sleeping swan, doth float
Upon the silver waves of thy sweet singing;
75 And thine doth like an angel sit
Beside the helm conducting it,
Whilst all the winds with melody are ringing.
It seems to float ever, for ever,
Upon that many-winding river,
80 Between mountains, woods, abysses,
A paradise of wildernesses!
Till, like one in slumber bound,
Borne to the ocean, I float down, around,
Into a sea profound, of ever-spreading sound.
85 Meanwhile thy spirit lifts its pinions
In Music’s most serene dominions,
Catching the winds that fan that happy Heaven.
And we sail on, away, afar,
Without a course, without a star,
90But by the instinct of sweet music driven;
Till through Elysian garden islets
By thee, most beautiful of pilots,
Where never mortal pinnace glided,
The boat of my desire is guided:
95Realms where the air we breathe is Love,
Which in the winds and on the waves doth move,
Harmonizing this Earth with what we feel above.
We have past Age’s icy caves,
And Manhood’s dark and tossing waves,
100And Youth’s smooth ocean, smiling to betray:
Beyond the glassy gulfs we flee
Of shadow-peopled Infancy,
Through Death and Birth, to a diviner day;
A paradise of vaulted bowers
105 Lit by downward-gazing flowers,
And watery paths that wind between
Wildernesses calm and green,
Peopled by shapes too bright to see,
And rest, having beheld; somewhat like thee;
110Which walk upon the sea, and chant melodiously!
End of the Second Act
ACT III
Scene i
Heaven. JUPITER on his Throne; THETIS and the other Deities assembled.
Jupiter
Ye congregated Powers of Heaven, who share
The glory and the strength of him ye serve,
Rejoice! henceforth I am omnipotent.
All else had been subdued to me; alone
5The soul of man, like unextinguished fire,
Yet burns towards Heaven with fierce reproach, and doubt,
And lamentation, and reluctant prayer,
Hurling up insurrection, which might make
Our antique empire insecure, though built
10On eldest faith, and Hell’s coeval, fear;
And though my curses through the pendulous air,
Like snow on herbless peaks, fall flake by flake,
And cling to it; though under my wrath’s night
It climb the crags of life, step after step,
15Which wound it, as ice wounds unsandalled feet,
It yet remains supreme o’er misery,
Aspiring, unrepressed; yet soon to fall:
Even now have I begotten a strange wonder,
That fatal child, the terror of the earth,
20Who waits but till the destined Hour arrive,
Bearing from Demogorgon’s vacant throne
The dreadful might of ever-living limbs
Which clothed that awful spirit unbeheld,
To redescend, and trample out the spark.
25Pour forth Heaven’s wine, Idaean Ganymede,
And let it fill the daedal cups like fire,
And from the flower-inwoven soil divine
Ye all-triumphant harmonies arise,
As dew from earth under the twilight stars:
30Drink! be the nectar circling through your veins
The soul of joy, ye ever-living Gods,
Till exultation burst in one wide voice
Like music from Elysian winds.
And thou
Ascend beside me, veiled in the light
35Of the desire which makes thee one with me,
Thetis, bright Image of Eternity!
When thou didst cry, ‘Insufferable might!
God! Spare me! I sustain not the quick flames,
The penetrating presence; all my being,
40Like him whom the Numidian seps did thaw
Into a dew with poison, is dissolved,
Sinking through its foundations’—even then
Two mighty spirits, mingling, made a third
Mightier than either, which, unbodied now
45Between us, floats, felt although unbeheld,
Waiting the incarnation, which ascends
(Hear ye the thunder of the fiery wheels
Griding the winds?) from Demogorgon’s throne.
Victory! victory! Feel’st thou not, O world,
50The earthquake of his chariot thundering up
Olympus?
[The Car of the HOUR arrives. DEMOGORGON descends and moves towards the Throne of JUPITER
Awful shape, what art thou? Speak!
Demogorgon
Eternity. Demand no direr name.
Descend, and follow me down the abyss.
I am thy child, as thou wert Saturn’s child;
55Mightier than thee: and we must dwell together
Henceforth in darkness. Lift thy lightnings not.
The tyranny of Heaven none may retain,
Or reassume, or hold, succeeding thee:
Yet if thou wilt—as ’tis the destiny
60Of trodden worms to writhe till they are dead—
Put forth thy might.
Jupiter
Detested prodigy!
Even thus beneath the deep Titanian prisons
I trample thee! thou lingerest?
Mercy! mercy!
No pity, no release, no respite! … Oh,
65That thou wouldst make mine enemy my judge,
Even where he hangs, seared by my long revenge,
On Caucasus!—he would not doom me thus.
Gentle, and just, and dreadless, is he not
The monarch of the world? What then art thou?
70No refuge! no appeal!
Sink with me then,
We two will sink on the wide waves of ruin,
Even as a vulture and a snake outspent
Drop, twisted in inextricable fight,
Into a shoreless sea. Let hell unlock
75Its mounded oceans of tempestuous fire,
And whelm on them into the bottomless void
This desolated world, and thee, and me,
The conqueror and the conquered, and the wreck
Of that for which they combated.
Ai! Ai!
80The elements obey me not … I sink …
Dizzily down—ever, for ever, down;
And, like a cloud, mine enemy above
Darkens my fall with victory! Ai! Ai!
Scene ii
The Mouth of a great River in the Island Atlantis. OCEAN is discovered reclining near the Shore; APOLLO stands beside him.
Ocean
He fell, thou sayest, beneath his conqueror’s frown?
Apollo
Aye, when the strife was ended which made dim
The orb I rule, and shook the solid stars.
The terrors of his eye illumined Heaven
5With sanguine light, through the thick ragged skirts
Of the victorious Darkness, as he fell:
Like the last glare of day’s red agony,
Which, from a rent among the fiery clouds,
Burns far along the tempest-wrinkled Deep.
Ocean
10He sunk to the abyss? to the dark void?
Apollo
An eagle so, caught in some bursting cloud
On Caucasus, his thunder-baffled wings
Entangled in the whirlwind, and his eyes
Which gazed on the undazzling sun, now blinded
15By the white lightning, while the ponderous hail
Beats on his struggling form, which sinks at length
Prone, and the aërial ice clings over it.
Ocean
Henceforth the fields of Heaven-reflecting sea
Which are my realm, will heave, unstained with blood,
20Beneath the uplifting winds, like plains of corn
Swayed by the summer air; my streams will flow
Round many-peopled continents, and round
Fortunate isles; and from their glassy thrones
Blue Proteus and his humid nymphs shall mark
25The shadow of fair ships, as mortals see
The floating bark of the light-laden moon
With that white star, its sightless pilot’s crest,
Borne down the rapid sunset’s ebbing sea;
Tracking their path no more by blood and groans,
30And desolation, and the mingled voice
Of slavery and command—but by the light
Of wave-reflected flowers, and floating odours,
And music soft, and mild, free, gentle voices,
That sweetest music, such as spirits love.
Apollo
35And I shall gaze not on the deeds which make
My mind obscure with sorrow, as eclipse
Darkens the sphere I guide—but list, I hear
The small, clear, silver lute of the young Spirit
That sits i’ the morning star.
Ocean
Thou must away?
40Thy steeds will pause at even—till when, farewell.
The loud deep calls me home even now to feed it
With azure calm out of the emerald urns
Which stand forever full beside my throne.
Behold the Nereids under the green sea,
45Their wavering limbs borne on the wind-like stream,
Their white arms lifted o’er their streaming hair
With garlands pied and starry sea-flower crowns,
Hastening to grace their mighty sister’s joy.
[A sound of waves is heard.
It is the unpastured sea hungering for calm.
50Peace, monster; I come now. Farewell.
Apollo
Farewell.
Scene iii
Caucasus. PROMETHEUS, HERCULES, IONE, the EARTH, SPIRITS; ASIA and PANTHEA borne in the Car with the SPIRIT OF THE HOUR.
[HERCULES unbinds PROMETHEUS, who descends.
Hercules
Most glorious among spirits, thus doth strength
To wisdom, courage, and long-suffering love,
And thee, who art the form they animate,
Minister like a slave.
Prometheus
Thy gentle words
5Are sweeter even than freedom long desired
And long delayed.
Asia, thou light of life,
Shadow of beauty unbeheld; and ye,
Fair sister nymphs, who made long years of pain
Sweet to remember, through your love and care;
10Henceforth we will not part. There is a Cave
All overgrown with trailing odorous plants,
Which curtain out the day with leaves and flowers,
And paved with veined emerald, and a fountain
Leaps in the midst with an awakening sound.
15From its curved roof the mountain’s frozen tears,
Like snow, or silver, or long diamond spires,
Hang downward, raining forth a doubtful light;
And there is heard the ever-moving air,
Whispering without from tree to tree, and birds,
20And bees; and all around are mossy seats,
And the rough walls are clothed with long soft grass;
A simple dwelling, which shall be our own;
Where we will sit and talk of time and change,
As the world ebbs and flows, ourselves unchanged—
25What can hide man from mutability?
And if ye sigh, then I will smile; and thou,
Ione, shalt chaunt fragments of sea-music,
Until I weep, when ye shall smile away
The tears she brought, which yet were sweet to shed.
30We will entangle buds and flowers and beams
Which twinkle on the fountain’s brim, and make
Strange combinations out of common things,
Like human babes in their brief innocence;
And we will search, with looks and words of love,
35For hidden thoughts, each lovelier than the last,
Our unexhausted spirits, and like lutes
Touched by the skill of the enamoured wind,
Weave harmonies divine, yet ever new,
From difference sweet where discord cannot be;
40And hither come, sped on the charmed winds
Which meet from all the points of heaven, as bees
From every flower aërial Enna feeds
At their known island-homes in Himera,
The echoes of the human world, which tell
45Of the low voice of love, almost unheard,
And dove-eyed pity’s murmured pain, and music,
Itself the echo of the heart, and all
That tempers or improves man’s life, now free;
And lovely apparitions, dim at first,
50Then radiant, as the mind, arising bright
From the embrace of beauty, whence the forms
Of which these are the phantoms, casts on them
The gathered rays which are reality,
Shall visit us, the progeny immortal
55Of Painting, Sculpture, and rapt Poesy,
And arts, though unimagined, yet to be.
The wandering voices and the shadows these
Of all that man becomes, the mediators
Of that best worship, love, by him and us
60Given and returned; swift shapes and sounds, which grow
More fair and soft as man grows wise and kind,
And veil by veil, evil and error fall …
Such virtue has the cave and place around.
[Turning to the SPIRIT OF THE HOUR.
For thee, fair Spirit, one toil remains. Ione,
65Give her that curved shell, which Proteus old
Made Asia’s nuptial boon, breathing within it
A voice to be accomplished, and which thou
Didst hide in grass under the hollow rock.
Ione
Thou most desired Hour, more loved and lovely
70Than all thy sisters, this is the mystic shell;
See the pale azure fading into silver
Lining it with a soft yet glowing light:
Looks it not like lulled music sleeping there?
Spirit
It seems in truth the fairest shell of Ocean:
75Its sound must be at once both sweet and strange.
Prometheus
Go, borne over the cities of mankind
On whirlwind-footed coursers: once again
Outspeed the sun around the orbed world;
And as thy chariot cleaves the kindling air,
80Thou breathe into the many-folded shell,
Loosening its mighty music; it shall be
As thunder mingled with clear echoes: then
Return; and thou shalt dwell beside our cave.
[Kissing the ground.
And thou, O Mother Earth!—
The Earth
I hear, I feel;
85Thy lips are on me, and thy touch runs down
Even to the adamantine central gloom
Along these marble nerves; ’tis life, ’tis joy,
And through my withered, old, and icy frame
The warmth of an immortal youth shoots down
90Circling. Henceforth the many children fair
Folded in my sustaining arms—all plants,
And creeping forms, and insects rainbow-winged,
And birds, and beasts, and fish, and human shapes,
Which drew disease and pain from my wan bosom,
95Draining the poison of despair—shall take
And interchange sweet nutriment; to me
Shall they become like sister-antelopes
By one fair dam, snow-white and swift as wind,
Nursed among lilies near a brimming stream.
100The dew-mists of my sunless sleep shall float
Under the stars like balm; night-folded flowers
Shall suck unwithering hues in their repose:
And men and beasts in happy dreams shall gather
Strength for the coming day, and all its joy:
105And death shall be the last embrace of her
Who takes the life she gave, even as a mother
Folding her child, says, ‘Leave me not again!’
Asia
O mother! wherefore speak the name of death?
Cease they to love, and move, and breathe, and speak,
110Who die?
The Earth
It would not avail to reply:
Thou art immortal, and this tongue is known
But to the uncommunicating dead.
Death is the veil which those who live call life:
They sleep, and it is lifted: and meanwhile
115In mild variety the seasons mild—
With rainbow-skirted showers, and odorous winds,
And long blue meteors cleansing the dull night,
And the life-kindling shafts of the keen sun’s
All-piercing bow, and the dew-mingled rain
120Of the calm moonbeams, a soft influence mild—
Shall clothe the forests and the fields—aye, even
The crag-built deserts of the barren deep—
With ever-living leaves, and fruits, and flowers.
And Thou! There is a Cavern where my spirit
125Was panted forth in anguish whilst thy pain
Made my heart mad, and those who did inhale it
Became mad too, and built a temple there,
And spoke, and were oracular, and lured
The erring nations round to mutual war,
130And faithless faith, such as Jove kept with thee;
Which breath now rises, as amongst tall weeds
A violet’s exhalation, and it fills
With a serener light and crimson air
Intense, yet soft, the rocks and woods around;
135It feeds the quick growth of the serpent vine,
And the dark linked ivy tangling wild,
And budding, blown, or odour-faded blooms
Which star the winds with points of coloured light
As they rain through them, and bright golden globes
140Of fruit, suspended in their own green heaven;
And, through their veined leaves and amber stems
The flowers whose purple and translucid bowls
Stand ever mantling with aërial dew,
The drink of spirits; and it circles round,
145Like the soft waving wings of noonday dreams,
Inspiring calm and happy thoughts, like mine
Now thou art thus restored. This Cave is thine.
Arise! Appear!
[A SPIRIT rises in the likeness of a winged child.
This is my torch-bearer,
Who let his lamp out in old time with gazing
150On eyes from which he kindled it anew
With love, which is as fire, sweet daughter mine,
For such is that within thine own. Run, wayward!
And guide this company beyond the peak
Of Bacchic Nysa, Maenad-haunted mountain,
155And beyond Indus and its tribute rivers,
Trampling the torrent streams and glassy lakes
With feet unwet, unwearied, undelaying;
And up the green ravine, across the vale,
Beside the windless and crystalline pool
160Where ever lies, on unerasing waves,
The image of a temple, built above,
Distinct with column, arch, and architrave,
And palm-like capital, and over-wrought,
And populous most with living imagery,
165Praxitelean shapes, whose marble smiles
Fill the hushed air with everlasting love.
It is deserted now, but once it bore
Thy name, Prometheus; there the emulous youths
Bore to thy honour through the divine gloom
170The lamp which was thine emblem … even as those
Who bear the untransmitted torch of hope
Into the grave, across the night of life,
As thou hast borne it most triumphantly
To this far goal of Time. Depart, farewell.
175Beside that temple is the destined cave.
Scene iv
A Forest. In the Back-ground a Cave. PROMETHEUS, ASIA, PANTHEA, IONE, and the SPIRIT OF THE EARTH.
Ione
Sister, it is not earthly … how it glides
Under the leaves! how on its head there burns
A light like a green star, whose emerald beams
Are twined with its fair hair! how, as it moves,
5The splendour drops in flakes upon the grass!
Knowest thou it?
Panthea
It is the delicate spirit
That guides the earth through heaven. From afar
The populous constellations call that light
The loveliest of the planets; and sometimes
10It floats along the spray of the salt sea,
Or makes its chariot of a foggy cloud,
Or walks through fields or cities while men sleep,
Or o’er the mountain tops, or down the rivers,
Or through the green waste wilderness, as now,
15Wondering at all it sees. Before Jove reigned
It loved our sister Asia, and it came
Each leisure hour to drink the liquid light
Out of her eyes, for which it said it thirsted
As one bit by a dipsas, and with her
20It made its childish confidence, and told her
All it had known or seen, for it saw much,
Yet idly reasoned what it saw; and called her—
For whence it sprung it knew not, nor do I—
‘Mother, dear Mother.’
Spirit of the Earth (running to ASIA)
Mother, dearest Mother!
25May I then talk with thee as I was wont?
May I then hide my eyes in thy soft arms,
After thy looks have made them tired of joy?
May I then play beside thee the long noons,
When work is none in the bright silent air?
Asia
30I love thee, gentlest being, and henceforth
Can cherish thee unenvied.
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