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Online Texts for Craig White's Literature Courses
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Percy
Shelley
Prometheus Unbound:
A
Lyrical Drama in Four Acts
(1820) (Abridged for LITR courses taught by
Craig White) |
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Textual notes:
Shelley’s poem is adapted from Percy Bysshe Shelley.
Complete Poetical Works.
-
Line
numbers, starting over in every scene,
are original from the Bartleby.com edition; cuts in text do not change line
numbers.
-
Ellipses (
. . . ) indicate cuts in text.
-
Bold print
identifies important names, themes or actions.
- [Instructor’s notes are in closed brackets and
smaller font].
- Shelley’s
stage directions are in regular font italics.
Purpose of abridgement:
Prometheus Unbound
stands among the most beautiful and inspiring poems in English, but its
imaginative abstraction, intensity, and scale may overwhelm first-time readers.
This abridgement compromises between teaching the whole poem unsuccessfully or
not teaching it at all. Repetitive or non-essential passages are cut, but the
narrative is retained. The original 21,775 word count is reduced below 14,000.
If one-third of Shelley’s poetry is lost, two-thirds remain. More students may
enjoy this version and feel encouraged to read the entire poem.
Instructor’s
introduction: Ancient Greek myths tell that
the
Titan Prometheus (or “forethought”) stole
fire from Zeus (a. k. a. Jupiter or Jove, king of the Gods) and gave it to
humanity. As punishment, Zeus chained Prometheus to a rock where every day a
vulture ate his liver. Since Prometheus was immortal, it grew back. Later
Hercules killed the vulture and freed Prometheus.
The
Greek tragic playwright Aeschylus (5th
c BCE) is
traditionally credited with authorship of the tragedy
Prometheus
Bound, one of a trilogy whose other two
dramas,
Prometheus Unbound and
Prometheus the
Fire-Bringer, are known only from
fragmentary evidence. According to these plays and other sources, Prometheus
made the first people from clay, gave them fire, and taught them
the
arts of civilization (writing, mathematics,
agriculture, science, etc.). See
Prometheus’s gifts endow
humans’ power to change and shape the world—essential
to modernity—but his
rebellion against divine authority
also makes him an archetype of Satan, who similarly shared prohibited knowledge.
The English
Romantic poet Shelley (1792-1822) published
Prometheus Unbound in 1820. Its
genre is
“closet drama”—a play to be read, not
performed. Other examples of this genre: John Milton’s
Samson
Agonistes (1671); Goethe’s
Faust, Parts 1
& 2 (1806, 1832).
Prometheus
Unbound’ may also be described as “lyric
drama”: little action occurs; effects are achieved by lyrical poetry evoking
emotions or personal awakening.
The
sub-title of the novel
Frankenstein
(1818, 1831) by Shelley’s wife, Mary Shelley (1797-1851) is
The Modern
Prometheus.
Romantic style conventions in
Prometheus Unbound:
·
Imagination,
metaphor, correspondence connect entities &
share meaning
·
Transcendence
of everyday reality via semi-divine, semi-human characters
·
Romance
narrative as personal transformation,
release from bondage
·
The Sublime:
grand visions of nature, changes in history, transformation
·
The Gothic:
Demogorgon’s early appearance underground
·
elevated language or tone; Romantic
rhetoric and diction
Prometheus
Unbound: A Lyrical Drama in Four Acts
(1820)
Preface [by Shelley]
.
. . The
Prometheus Unbound of Aeschylus
[see above]
supposed the reconciliation of Jupiter with his victim . . . . Had I framed my
story on this model, I should have done no more than have attempted to restore
the lost drama of Aeschylus . . . . But, in truth, I was averse from a
catastrophe* so feeble as that of reconciling the Champion
[Prometheus] with the
Oppressor of mankind [Jupiter or Zeus]. The
moral interest of the fable, which is so powerfully sustained by the sufferings
and endurance of Prometheus, would be annihilated if we could conceive of him as
unsaying his high language and quailing before his successful and perfidious
adversary. The only imaginary being, resembling in any degree Prometheus, is
Satan [in Milton’s
Paradise Lost];
and
Prometheus is, in my judgment, a more poetical character than Satan, because, in
addition to courage, and majesty, and firm and patient opposition to omnipotent
force, he is susceptible of being described as exempt from the taints of
ambition, envy, revenge, and a desire for personal aggrandizement,
which, in the hero of
Paradise Lost,
interfere with the interest. . . .
Prometheus is,
as it were, the type of the highest perfection of moral and intellectual nature
impelled by the purest and the truest motives to the best and noblest ends.
[*catastrophe = dramatic event initiating resolution
of plot in a tragedy]
[Shelley’s Preface continues]
This Poem was chiefly written upon the mountainous ruins of the Baths of
Caracalla [ruins of public baths outside Rome],
among the flowery glades and thickets of odoriferous blossoming trees, which are
extended in ever winding labyrinths upon its immense platforms and dizzy arches
suspended in the air.
The bright blue sky of
The imagery which
I have employed will be found . . . to have been drawn from the operations of
the human mind, or from those external actions by which they are expressed. . .
.
.
. . We owe the great writers of the golden age of our [English] literature to
that
fervid awakening of the public mind which shook to dust the oldest and most
oppressive form of the Christian religion
[the Enlightenment or Age of Reason].
We owe
As to imitation,
poetry is a
mimetic [imitative] art.
It creates, but it
creates by combination and representation.
Poetical abstractions are beautiful and new,
not because the portions of which they are composed had no previous existence in
the mind of man or in Nature, but because
the whole
produced by their combination has some intelligible and beautiful analogy with
those sources of emotion and thought and
with the contemporary condition of them. . . .
But it is
a
mistake to suppose that I dedicate my poetical compositions solely to the direct
enforcement of reform, or that I consider them in any degree as containing a
reasoned system on the theory of human life. Didactic poetry is my abhorrence
. . . .
My purpose has hitherto been simply to familiarize the
highly refined imagination of the more select classes of poetical readers with
beautiful idealisms of moral excellence;
aware that,
until the mind can love, and admire, and trust, and
hope, and endure, reasoned principles of moral conduct are seeds cast upon the
highway of life which the unconscious passenger tramples into dust,
although they would bear the harvest of his happiness. . . .
Prometheus Unbound: A Lyrical Drama in Four Acts
DRAMATIS PERSONÆ
[Latin: persons or characters of the drama]
PROMETHEUS.
[a titan, chained to mountain for stealing fire
from gods for humanity]
DEMOGORGON
[a primordial pagan god of the underworld]
JUPITER
[a. k. a. Jove, Zeus, king of the gods; master
of thunder and lightning]
THE PHANTASM OF JUPITER
APOLLO
[god of the sun]
MERCURY
[messenger of the gods]
HERCULES
[a. k. a. Heracles, Herakles; legendary
strongman; son of Zeus & Alcmene]
IONE [a sea nymph of the
Nereids, the 50 daughters of the titan Nereus and the Oceanid Doris]
PANTHEA [an Oceanid]
THETIS
[mother
by Jupiter of Achilles & Demogorgon]
Oceanides [sea nymphs]
THE EARTH
OCEAN
THE SPIRIT OF THE EARTH.
THE SPIRIT OF THE MOON.
SPIRITS OF THE HOURS.
SPIRITS. ECHOES. FAUNS.
FURIES.
Act I, SCENE,
a Ravine of Icy Rocks in the Indian
PROMETHEUS:
Monarch of Gods and Daemons, and all Spirits
[Monarch=Jupiter;
Daemons=spirits]
But One, who throng those bright
and rolling worlds [But one = Except
Prometheus]
Which Thou and I alone of living things
Behold with sleepless eyes!
Regard
this Earth
Made multitudinous with thy
slaves, whom thou
[thy, thou = Jupiter]
Requitest for knee-worship,
prayer, and praise,
[Requitest = repay]
And toil, and hecatombs of broken
hearts,
[hecatombs = slaughters]
With fear and self-contempt and barren hope;
Whilst me, who am thy foe, eyeless in hate,
Hast thou made reign and triumph
[celebration],
to thy scorn,
10
O'er mine own misery and thy vain revenge.
Three thousand years of sleep-unsheltered hours,
And moments aye divided by keen
pangs
[aye = always]
Till they seemed years,
torture and
solitude,
Scorn and despair—these are mine empire:
More glorious far
than that which thou surveyest
From thine
unenvied throne, O Mighty God!
Almighty, had I deigned to share
the shame
[deigned = chosen]
Of thine ill tyranny, and hung not here
Nailed to this wall of
eagle-baffling mountain,
20
Black, wintry, dead, unmeasured;
without herb,
[herb = vegetation]
Insect, or beast, or shape or sound of life.
Ah me! alas,
pain, pain ever, forever! . . .
And yet to me
welcome is day and night,
Whether one breaks the hoar-frost
of the morn,
[hoar = white]
Or starry, dim, and slow, the
other climbs
[other = night]
The leaden-colored east; for then they lead
The wingless, crawling hours, one among whom—
As some dark Priest hales the
reluctant victim—
[hales = summons; as in an execution]
Shall drag thee, cruel King, to
kiss the blood
50
From these pale feet, which then might trample thee
If they disdained not such a prostrate slave.
Disdain! Ah,
no! I pity thee. What ruin
[thee = Jupiter]
Will hunt thee undefended through the wide Heaven!
How will thy
soul, cloven to its depth with terror,
Gape like a hell within!
I speak in
grief,
Not exultation,
for I hate no more,
As then ere misery made me wise. The
curse
[ere = before]
Once breathed on
thee I would recall. . . .
If then my words had power,
Though I am changed so that aught
evil wish
[aught = any]
70
Is dead within; although no memory be
Of what is hate, let them not lose it now!
What was that
curse? . . .
[Omitted
passages: Several spirits respond,
recalling the dreadfulness of Prometheus’s curse against Jupiter but not
answering as to the curse’s content. Prometheus then speaks to “The Earth.”]
PROMETHEUS:
.
. . I would hear that curse again. . . .
Speak, Spirit! from thine
inorganic voice
[Prometheus addresses the Spirit of the Earth]
I only know that thou art moving near
And love. How cursed I him? . . .
THE EARTH:
No, thou canst not hear;
Thou art immortal, and this
tongue is known
150
Only to those who die.
PROMETHEUS:
And what art thou,
O melancholy Voice?
THE EARTH:
I am the Earth,
Thy mother; she within whose stony veins,
To the last fiber of the loftiest tree
Whose thin leaves trembled in the frozen air,
Joy
ran, as blood within a living frame,
When thou didst
from her bosom, like a cloud
Of glory, arise,
a spirit of keen joy!
And at thy voice her pining sons
uplifted
[pining sons = desperate mankind]
Their prostrate brows from the
polluting dust,
160
And our almighty Tyrant with
fierce dread
[Tyrant = Jupiter]
Grew pale, until his thunder chained thee here.
Then—see those million worlds
which burn and roll
[million worlds=stars, heavenly bodies]
Around us—their inhabitants beheld
My spherèd light wane in wide
Heaven; the sea [sphered light wane=Earth’s
surrounding light fades]
Was lifted by strange tempest, and new fire
From earthquake-rifted mountains of bright snow
Shook its portentous hair beneath Heaven's frown . . . .
. . .
ay, I heard
[ay = yes]
Thy curse, the which, if thou rememberest not,
180
Yet my
innumerable seas and streams,
Mountains, and
caves, and winds, and yon wide air,
And the
inarticulate people of the dead,
Preserve, a
treasured spell. We meditate
In secret joy and
hope those dreadful words,
But dare not
speak them.
PROMETHEUS:
Venerable mother!
All else who live and suffer take from thee
Some comfort; flowers, and fruits, and happy sounds,
And love, though fleeting; these may not be mine.
But mine own words, I pray, deny
me not.
190
THE EARTH:
They shall be told. Ere
The Magus Zoroaster, my dead
child, [magus=magician; Zoroaster=ancient
Iranian prophet]
Met his own image walking in the garden.
That apparition, sole of men, he saw.
For know there are
two worlds of
life and death:
One that which
thou beholdest; but the other
Is underneath
the grave, where do inhabit
The shadows of all forms that think and live,
Till death unite them and they part no more . . .
. . . all the gods
Are there, and all the powers of nameless worlds,
Vast, sceptered phantoms; heroes, men, and beasts;
And
Demogorgon,
a tremendous
gloom;
[primordial pagan god of underworld;
gothic]
And he, the supreme Tyrant, on
his throne
[he, Tyrant = Jupiter]
Of burning gold. Son, one of these shall utter
The curse
which all remember.
Call at will
210
Thine own
ghost, or
the ghost of Jupiter
. . . .
PROMETHEUS:
Mother,
let not aught
[aught = any]
Of that which may
be evil pass again
My lips,
or those of aught resembling me.
220
Phantasm of Jupiter, arise, appear! . .
. [phantasm
= ghost, image]
PANTHEA:
The sound is of whirlwind underground,
[sublime imagery]
Earthquake, and fire, and mountains cloven;
The shape is awful, like the sound,
Clothed in dark purple, star-inwoven.
A scepter of pale gold,
[scepter = wand or rod of royal authority]
To stay steps proud, o'er the slow cloud,
His veinèd hand doth hold.
Cruel he looks,
but calm and strong,
Like one who
does, not suffers wrong.
PHANTASM [ghost, phantom, image] OF JUPITER:
Why have the secret powers of
this strange world
240
Driven me, a frail and empty phantom, hither
On direst storms? What unaccustomed sounds
Are hovering on my lips, unlike the voice
With which our pallid race hold ghastly talk
In darkness? And, proud sufferer, who art thou?
PROMETHEUS:
Tremendous Image! as thou art must be
[Image = form, ghost]
He whom thou shadowest forth. I
am his foe,
[He = Jupiter]
The Titan. Speak the words which I would hear,
Although no thought inform thine empty voice. . . .
PHANTASM:
A
spirit seizes me and speaks within;
It tears me as fire tears a thunder-cloud. . . .
PHANTASM:
[reciting Prometheus’s curse against
Jupiter]
Fiend, I defy thee! with a calm, fixed mind,
[Fiend
= Jupiter; I = Prometheus]
All that thou canst inflict I bid thee do;
Foul tyrant both of Gods and humankind,
One only being shalt thou not subdue.
Rain then thy plagues upon me here,
Ghastly disease, and frenzying fear;
And let alternate frost and fire
Eat into me, and be thine ire
[ire = anger]
Lightning, and cutting hail, and legioned forms
[legioned = swarming]
270
Of furies, driving by upon the wounding storms.
Ay, do thy worst!
Thou art
omnipotent.
O'er all things but thyself I gave thee power,
And my own will. . . .
But
thou, who art the God and Lord: O thou
Who fillest with thy soul this world of woe,
To whom all things of Earth and Heaven do bow
In fear and worship—all-prevailing foe!
I curse thee!
let a sufferer's curse
Clasp thee, his torturer, like remorse;
Till thine Infinity shall be
A robe of envenomed agony;
And thine Omnipotence a crown of pain,
290
To cling like burning gold round thy dissolving brain! .
. .
PROMETHEUS:
Were these my words, O Parent?
THE EARTH:
They were thine.
PROMETHEUS:
It doth repent me; words are quick and
vain;
Grief for awhile is blind, and so was mine.
I wish no
living thing to suffer pain. . . .
[Omitted
passages: The messenger of the gods,
Mercury, relays to Prometheus a bargain offered by Jupiter: if Prometheus will
bow to Jupiter’s rule, he may return to heaven. Prometheus refuses and is set
upon by Furies—winged female personifications of vengeance.]
PROMETHEUS:
He whom some dreadful voice invokes is
here,
Prometheus, the chained Titan. Horrible forms,
What and who are ye? . . .
FIRST FURY:
We are the
ministers of
pain, and fear,
And disappointment, and mistrust, and hate,
And clinging crime . . . .
PROMETHEUS:
I laugh
[mock] your power, and his who sent you here,
To lowest scorn. Pour forth the cup of pain. . . .
[Instructor’s
note:
Chorus and Semichorus below are conventions from classical Greek tragedy in
which a group of figures comment or provide background information]
CHORUS [OF FURIES]:
The pale stars of the morn
Shine on a misery, dire to be
borne.
540
Dost thou faint, mighty Titan? We laugh thee to scorn.
Dost thou boast
the clear knowledge thou waken'dst for man?
Then was kindled
within him a thirst which outran
Those perishing
waters; a thirst of fierce fever,
Hope, love,
doubt, desire, which consume him forever.
One came forth of gentle worth,
[One =
Christ]
Smiling on the sanguine earth;
His words outlived him . . .
Past ages crowd on thee, but each one remembers,
And the future is dark, and the present is spread
Like a pillow of thorns for thy slumberless head.
[Instructor’s
note: The
description of Christ parallels Prometheus’s change from vengeful rebellion to
love]
SEMICHORUS I:
Drops of bloody agony flow
[semichorus=half group of Furies]
From his white and quivering brow.
Grant a little respite now.
See! a disenchanted nation
Spring like day from desolation;
To Truth its state is dedicate,
And Freedom leads it forth, her mate;
570
A legioned band of linkèd brothers,
Whom Love calls children—
[Instructor’s
note: These
passages refer to the histories of Christ and the French Revolution.]
SEMICHORUS II:
'T is another's.
See how kindred murder kin!
'T is the vintage-time for Death and Sin;
Blood, like new wine, bubbles within;
Till Despair smothers
The struggling world, which
slaves and tyrants win. [win = gain, take possession of]
[All
the FURIES
vanish, except
one.]
IONE:
Hark, sister! what a low yet dreadful groan
Quite unsuppressed is tearing up the heart
Of the good Titan, as storms tear
the deep,
580
And beasts hear the sea moan in inland caves.
Darest thou observe how the fiends torture him?
PANTHEA:
Alas! I looked forth twice, but will no more.
IONE:
What didst thou see?
PANTHEA:
A woeful sight: a youth
With patient looks nailed to a crucifix. . . .
FURY:
Blood thou canst see, and fire; and canst hear
groans:
Worse things unheard, unseen, remain behind.
PROMETHEUS:
Worse?
FURY: In each
human heart terror survives
The ruin it has gorged: the loftiest fear
All that they would disdain to
think were true.
620
Hypocrisy and
custom make their minds
The fanes of many a worship, now
outworn.
[fanes = temples]
They dare not devise good for man's
estate,
[they = “worships,” religions]
And yet they know
not that they do not dare.
The good want power, but to weep barren
tears.
[but to = besides]
The powerful
goodness want; worse need for them.
The wise want
love; and those who love want wisdom;
And all best
things are thus confused to ill.
Many are strong
and rich, and would be just,
But live among their suffering fellow-men
630
As if none felt; they know not what they
do.
[Luke 23:24]
PROMETHEUS:
Thy words are like a cloud of wingèd snakes;
And yet I pity those they torture not.
FURY:
Thou pitiest them? I speak no more!
[Vanishes.]
PROMETHEUS:
Ah
woe!
Ah woe! Alas!
pain, pain
ever, forever!
I close my tearless eyes, but see more clear
Thy works within my woe-illumèd
mind,
[thy = Jupiter’s]
Thou subtle tyrant! Peace is in the grave.
The grave hides all things beautiful and good.
I am a God and cannot find it
there,
[Prometheus cannot die]
640
Nor would I seek it; for, though dread revenge,
This is defeat, fierce king, not victory.
The sights with
which thou torturest gird my soul
With new
endurance, till the hour arrives
When they shall be no types of things
which are. [millennial change]
PANTHEA:
Alas! what sawest thou?
PROMETHEUS:
There
are two woes—
To speak and to behold; thou
spare me one.
Names are there, Nature's sacred watchwords, they
Were borne aloft in bright emblazonry;
The nations thronged around, and
cried aloud,
650
As with one
voice, Truth,
Suddenly fierce confusion fell from heaven
Among them; there was strife, deceit, and fear;
Tyrants rushed in, and did divide the spoil.
This was
the
shadow of the truth I saw. . . .
CHORUS OF
SPIRITS: From unremembered ages we
Gentle guides and guardians be
Of heaven-oppressed mortality;
And we breathe, and sicken not,
The atmosphere of human thought:
Be it dim, and dank, and gray,
Like a storm-extinguished day,
Traveled o'er by dying gleams; . . .
Thence we bear the prophecy
690
Which begins and ends in thee!
IONE:
More yet come, one by one; the air around them
Looks radiant as the air around a star.
FIRST SPIRIT:
On
a battle-trumpet's blast
I fled hither, fast, fast, fast,
'Mid the darkness upward cast.
From the dust of creeds outworn,
From the tyrant's banner torn,
Gathering round me, onward borne,
There was mingled many a cry—
700
Freedom! Hope! Death! Victory!
Till they faded through the sky;
And one sound above, around,
One sound beneath, around, above,
Was moving; 't was the soul of love;
'T was the hope, the prophecy,
Which begins and ends in thee. . . .
[thee = Prometheus]
707
CHORUS OF
SPIRITS: Hast thou beheld the form of Love?
. . .
CHORUS:
Though Ruin now Love's shadow be,
780
Following him, destroyingly,
On Death's white and wingèd steed,
Which the fleetest cannot flee,
Trampling down both flower and weed,
Man and beast, and foul and fair,
Like a tempest through the air;
Thou shalt quell this horseman grim,
Woundless though in heart or limb. . . . .
PROMETHEUS:
How fair these air-born shapes! and
yet I feel
Most vain all
hope but love; and thou art far,
Wert like a golden chalice to
bright wine
810
Which else had sunk into the thirsty dust. . . . .
I would
fain
[fain = choose to]
Be what it is my
destiny to be,
The savior and
the strength of suffering man,
Or sink into the
original gulf of things.
There is no
agony, and no solace left;
Earth can console, Heaven can torment no
more.
820
PANTHEA:
Hast thou forgotten one who watches thee
[one=
The cold dark night, and never sleeps but when
The shadow of thy spirit falls on her?
PROMETHEUS:
I said all hope was vain but love; thou lovest.
PANTHEA:
Deeply in truth; but the eastern star looks white,
And Asia waits in that far Indian
vale,
[Indian vale = valley in Asian subcontinent]
The scene of her sad exile; rugged once
And desolate and frozen, like this ravine;
But now invested with fair flowers and herbs,
And haunted by sweet airs and
sounds, which flow
[airs = melodies]
830
Among the woods and waters, from
the ether
[ether = heavenly element]
Of
her
transforming presence, which would fade
If it were mingled not with thine. Farewell!
Act II
[
. . .
PANTHEA
enters
. . . [Panthea = Ocean nymph]
ASIA:
Lift up thine eyes,
And let me read thy dream.
[wow]
PANTHEA:
. . . With our sea-sister at his feet I slept.
[sea-sister=Ione; his=Prometheus’s]
The mountain mists, condensing at our voice
Under the moon, had spread their snowy flakes,
From the keen ice shielding our
linkèd sleep.
60
Then
two dreams
came.
One I remember not.
But in the other his pale wound-worn limbs
Fell from Prometheus, and
the azure
night [azure
= sky-blue]
Grew radiant with
the glory of that form
Which lives
unchanged within, and his voice fell
Like music which makes giddy the dim brain,
Faint with intoxication of keen joy:
'Sister of her whose footsteps
pave the world
[Prometheus speaks to Panthea in her dream]
With loveliness—more fair than aught but her,
Whose shadow thou art—lift thine
eyes on me.'
70
I lifted them; the overpowering light
Of that immortal shape was shadowed o'er
By love; which, from his soft and flowing limbs,
And passion-parted lips, and keen, faint eyes,
Steamed forth like vaporous fire; an atmosphere
Which wrapped me in its all-dissolving power,
As the warm ether of the morning sun
Wraps ere it drinks some cloud of wandering dew.
I saw not, heard not, moved not,
only
felt
His presence flow and mingle through my blood
80
Till it became his life, and his grew
mine,
And I was thus absorbed, until it passed,
And
like the
vapors when the sun sinks down,
Gathering again
in drops upon the pines,
And tremulous as
they, in the deep night
My being was
condensed; and as the rays
Of thought were
slowly gathered, I could hear
His voice, whose
accents lingered ere they died
Like footsteps of
weak melody; thy name
Among the many sounds alone I heard
90
Of what might be
articulate . . .
.
. . the Eastern star grew pale,
But fled to thee.
Are as the air; I feel them not. Oh, lift
Thine eyes, that I may read his
written soul!
110
PANTHEA:
I lift them, though they droop beneath the load
Of that they would express; what canst thou see
But thine own fairest shadow imaged there?
Contracted to two circles underneath
Their long, fine lashes; dark, far, measureless,
Orb within orb, and line through line inwoven.
PANTHEA:
Why lookest thou as if a spirit passed?
I see a shade, a shape:
'Tis He,
arrayed
[He = Prometheus]
120
In the soft light
of his own smiles, which spread
Like radiance
from the cloud-surrounded moon.
Prometheus, it is thine! depart
not yet!
[it = radiance? Shape?]
Say not those smiles that we
shall meet again
[Don’t those smiles say that . . . ]
Within that bright pavilion which
their beams
[pavilion = ornate structure or shelter]
Shall build on the waste world? The dream is told.
What shape is that between us?
Its rude hair
[rude = wild]
Roughens the wind that lifts it, its regard
Is wild and quick, yet 'tis a thing of air,
For through its gray robe gleams
the golden dew
130
Whose stars the noon has quenched not.
DREAM:
Follow! Follow!
PANTHEA:
It is mine other dream. . . .
[the dream Panthea couldn’t remember, line 61
above]
ECHOES:
Oh, follow, follow,
As our voice recedeth
Through the caverns hollow,
Where the forest spreadeth;
(More
distant)
Oh, follow, follow!
Through the caverns hollow,
As the song floats thou pursue,
Where the wild bee never flew,
180
Through the noontide darkness deep,
By the odor-breathing sleep
Of faint night-flowers, and the waves
At the fountain-lighted caves,
While our music, wild and sweet,
Mocks thy gently falling feet,
Child of Ocean! . . .
[ = Panthea,
an Ocean nymph]
And follow, ere the voices fade away.
ACT II, SCENE II.
A
SEMICHORUS I OF
SPIRITS
The path through which that lovely twain [= couple, two;
Asia & Panthea]
Have passed, by cedar, pine, and yew,
And each dark tree that ever grew,
Is curtained out from Heaven's wide blue;
Nor sun, nor moon, nor wind, nor rain,
Can pierce its interwoven bowers,
Nor aught, save where some cloud of dew,
Drifted along the earth-creeping breeze
Between the trunks of the hoar
trees,
[hoar = white or grayish-white]
Hangs each a pearl in the pale flowers . . .
10
Or when some star of many a one
That climbs and wanders through steep night,
Has found the cleft through which
alone
[cleft = opening, passage]
Beams fall from high those depths upon,—
Ere it is borne away, away,
[it = star]
By the swift Heavens that cannot stay,
It scatters drops of golden
light,
20
Like lines of rain that ne'er unite;
And the gloom divine is all around;
And underneath is the mossy ground.
SEMICHORUS II
There the voluptuous
nightingales,
[voluptuous = fully, sensuously pleasant]
Are awake through all the broad noon day:
When one with bliss or sadness
fails,
[fails = ceases singing]
And through the windless ivy-boughs,
Sick with sweet love, droops dying away
On its mate's music-panting bosom;
Another from the swinging
blossom,
30
Watching to catch the languid close
Of the last strain, then lifts on high
The wings of the weak melody,
Till some new strain of feeling bear
The song, and all the woods are mute;
When there is heard through the dim air
The rush of wings, and rising there,
Like many a lake-surrounded flute,
Sounds overflow the listener's brain
So sweet, that joy is almost
pain.
[the sublime, which mixes pleasure & pain]
40
SEMICHORUS I
There those enchanted eddies play
[eddy = circular current of air]
Of echoes, music-tongued, which draw,
By Demogorgon's mighty law,
With melting rapture, or sweet awe,
All spirits on that secret way,
As inland boats are driven to Ocean
Down streams made strong with mountain-thaw;
And first there comes a gentle sound
To those in talk or slumber bound,
And
wakes the
destined; soft emotion
50
Attracts,
impels them; those who saw
Say from the breathing earth behind
There steams a plume-uplifting wind
Which drives them on their path, while they
Believe their own swift wings and feet
The sweet desires within obey;
And so they float upon their way,
Until, still sweet, but loud and strong,
The storm of sound is driven along . . . .
ACT II, SCENE III.—A
Pinnacle of Rock among Mountains.
PANTHEA:
Hither the sound has borne us—to the realm
Of Demogorgon, and the mighty
portal,
[portal = cave later claimed by Prometheus]
Like a volcano's meteor-breathing
chasm,
[chasm = mouth;
gothic + sublime]
Whence the oracular vapor is hurled up [underground gases
may have affected oracles]
Which lonely men drink wandering in their youth,
And call truth, virtue, love, genius, or joy,
That maddening wine of life, whose dregs they drain
To deep intoxication; and uplift,
Like Mænads who cry loud, Evoe!
Evoe!
[Maenads = female devotees of Dionysus / Bacchus]
The voice which is contagion to
the world.
[“Evoe” was the cry of the maenads.] 10
How glorious
art thou, Earth! and if thou be
The shadow of some spirit lovelier still,
Though evil stain its work, and it should be
Like its creation, weak yet beautiful,
I could fall down and worship that and thee.
Even now my heart adoreth. Wonderful!
Look, sister, ere the vapor dim
thy brain:
[vapor = gases from cavern]
Beneath is a wide plain of billowy mist,
As a lake, paving in the morning
sky . . .
[sublime scale]
20
Behold it, rolling on
Under the curdling winds, and islanding
The peak whereon we stand, midway, around,
Encinctured by the dark and
blooming forests,
[encinctured = encircled, surrounded]
Dim twilight-lawns, and stream-illumined caves,
And wind-enchanted shapes of wandering mist;
And far on high the keen sky-cleaving mountains
From icy spires of sunlike radiance fling
The dawn, as lifted Ocean's
dazzling spray,
30
From some Atlantic islet scattered up,
Spangles the wind with lamp-like waterdrops. . . .
Hark! the rushing snow!
The sun-awakened avalanche! whose mass,
Thrice sifted by the storm, had gathered there
Flake after flake, in
heaven-defying
minds
As thought by thought is piled,
till some great truth
40
Is loosened, and the nations echo round,
Shaken to their roots, as do the mountains now.
PANTHEA:
Look how the gusty sea of mist is breaking
In crimson foam, even at our feet! . . .
The wind that lifts them disentwines my hair;
Its billows now sweep o'er mine eyes; my brain
Grows dizzy; I see shapes within
the mist.
50
PANTHEA:
A countenance with beckoning smiles; there burns
An azure fire within its golden locks!
Another and another: hark! they speak!
SONG OF SPIRITS
[directing Asia & Panthea to the underworld
throne of Demogorgon]
To the deep, to the deep,
Down down!
Through the shade of sleep,
Through the cloudy strife
Of Death and of Life;
Through the veil and the bar
Of things which seem and are,
60
Even to the steps of the remotest throne,
Down, down! . . . .
We have bound thee, we guide thee;
90
Down, down!
With the bright form beside thee;
Resist not the weakness,
Such strength is in meekness
That the Eternal, the Immortal,
Must unloose through life's portal
The snake-like Doom coiled underneath his
throne [Doom = fate, destiny]
By that alone.
ACT II, SCENE IV.—The
PANTHEA:
What veilèd form sits on that ebon throne?
[ebon = dark, deep black]
PANTHEA:
I see
a mighty darkness
Filling the
seat of power, and
rays of gloom
Dart round, as light from the meridian sun,
Ungazed upon
and
shapeless; neither limb,
Nor form, nor
outline; yet we feel it is
A living Spirit.
DEMOGORGON:
Ask what thou wouldst know.
DEMOGORGON:
All things thou dar'st demand.
[dar’st = darest]
DEMOGORGON:
God.
That it contains? thought,
passion, reason, will,
10
Imagination?
DEMOGORGON:
God: Almighty God.
In rarest visitation, or
the voice
Of one belovèd heard in youth alone,
Fills the faint eyes with falling tears which dim
The radiant looks of unbewailing flowers,
And leaves this peopled earth a solitude
When it returns no more?
DEMOGORGON:
Merciful God.
Abandoned hope, and love that turns to hate;
And self-contempt . . .
And Hell, or the sharp fear of Hell?
DEMOGORGON:
He reigns.
[He = Jupiter]
Asks but his name; curses shall
drag him down.
30
DEMOGORGON:
He reigns.
DEMOGORGON:
He reigns.
Who reigns? There was
the Heaven and
Earth at first,
And Light and
Love; then Saturn, from whose throne
[Titans’ father, tried to kill & eat them]
Time fell, an envious shadow;
such the state
[Time = Greek Kronos, alt. aspect of Saturn]
Of the earth's primal spirits beneath his sway . . .
[earth’s primal spirits = the Titans?]
; but
he refused
[he refused = Saturn denied]
The birthright of their being,
knowledge, power,
[their = the earth’s primal spirits’ = Titans?]
The skill which wields the elements, the thought
40
Which pierces
this dim universe like light,
Self-empire, and the majesty of love;
For thirst
of which they fainted. Then
Prometheus
Gave wisdom,
which is strength, to
Jupiter,
And with
this law alone,
'Let man be free,'
Clothed him with the dominion of
wide Heaven.
[him = Jupiter]
To know nor faith, nor love, nor law, to be
[nor faith = neither faith]
Omnipotent but
friendless, is to reign;
And
Jove
now reigned; for on the race of man
First
famine, and
then toil, and
then
disease,
[cf. God’s curse of labor in Genesis]
50
Strife, wounds, and ghastly death unseen
before,
Fell; and the unseasonable seasons drove,
With alternating shafts of frost and fire,
Their shelterless, pale tribes to
mountain caves;
[their = humans’]
And in their
desert hearts
fierce wants he
sent,
And mad disquietudes, and
shadows idle
Of unreal good,
which levied mutual war,
So ruining the lair wherein they raged.
Prometheus saw. . .
[The following passage relates
Prometheus’s teaching humanity the arts of civilization]
Love he sent to bind
The disunited tendrils of that vine
Which bears the wine of life, the human heart;
And
he tamed
fire which, like
some beast of prey,
Most terrible, but lovely, played beneath
The frown of man; and tortured to
his will
[tortured = shaped]
Iron and gold, the slaves and signs of power,
And gems and poisons, and all
subtlest forms
70
Hidden beneath the mountains and the waves.
He
gave man
speech, and speech created thought,
Which is the measure of the universe;
And
Science
struck the
thrones of earth and heaven,
Which shook,
but fell not; and the harmonious mind
Poured
itself forth in
all-prophetic song;
[song = poetry]
And music lifted up the listening spirit
Until it walked, exempt from mortal care,
Godlike, o'er the clear billows of sweet sound;
And human hands first mimicked
and then mocked,
[mimesis]
80
With moulded limbs more lovely
than its own,
[sculpture]
The human form, till marble grew divine;
And mothers, gazing, drank the love men see
Reflected in their race, behold, and perish.
He told the hidden power of herbs
and springs,
[medicine]
And Disease drank and slept. Death grew like sleep.
He taught
the implicated
orbits woven
[astronomy]
Of the
wide-wandering stars; and how the sun
Changes his lair, and by what secret spell
The pale moon is transformed . .
.
90
He taught to rule . . .
Cities then
Were built . . . .
Such, the alleviations of his
state,
[his = man’s]
Prometheus gave to man, for which he hangs
Withering in destined pain;
but who
rains down
100
Evil
. . . ?
Not Jove:
while yet his frown shook heaven ay,
when
[Jove = Jupiter]
His adversary from adamantine chains
[adamantine = diamond-hard, unbreakable]
Cursed him, he trembled like a slave.
Declare
Who is his
master? Is he too a slave?
DEMOGORGON:
All spirits
are enslaved which serve things evil:
110
Thou knowest if Jupiter be such or no.
DEMOGORGON: I
spoke but as ye speak,
For Jove is the
supreme of living things.
DEMOGORGON:
If the abysm
Could 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
All things are subject but eternal Love.
120
The response thou hast given; and
of such
truths
Each to itself
must be the oracle.
One more demand; and
do thou answer
me
As 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!
I see cars drawn by
rainbow-wingèd steeds
[cars
= chariots] 130
Which trample the dim winds . . . .
Their
bright locks
[their = steeds’]
Stream like a comet's flashing hair; they all
Sweep onward.
[all on sublime imaginative scale]
DEMOGORGON:
These are the immortal Hours,
140
Of whom thou didst demand. One waits for thee.
[Instructor’s
note: The
“Hours” may be imagined as personifications of moments or times in history,
including the millennium]
Checks its dark chariot by the
craggy gulf.
[checks = parks, holds]
Unlike thy brethren, ghastly Charioteer,
Who art thou? Whither wouldst thou bear me? Speak!
SPIRIT
[a “spirit of the hour”]:
I am
the Shadow of a destiny
[“Shadow” = foreshadowing]
More dread
than is my aspect; ere yon planet
[Venus or the Morning Star. See below]
Has set,
the darkness
which ascends with me
Shall wrap in lasting night heaven's
kingless throne.
[dystopian millennium]
PANTHEA:
That terrible
Shadow floats
150
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
[car = chariot; courses = steeds / horses]
Terrified; watch its path among the stars
Blackening the night!
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
That guides it has the dove-like eyes of
hope;
160
How its soft
smiles attract the soul! as light
Lures wingèd insects through the lampless air.
SPIRIT:
[a benign “spirit of the
hour” suggesting a utopian millennium]
My coursers are fed with the
lightning,
[courser = racing horse]
They drink of the whirlwind's stream,
And when the red morning is bright'ning
They bathe in the fresh sunbeam. . . .
I desire—and their speed makes
night kindle;
[kindle = alight, catch fire]
I fear—they outstrip the typhoon;
170
Ere the cloud piled on Atlas can
dwindle
[Atlas Mountains in
We encircle the earth and the moon.
We shall rest from long labors at noon;
Then ascend with me, daughter of Ocean.
ACT II, SCENE V.—The
Car [chariot]
pauses within a Cloud on the Top of a snowy Mountain.
SPIRIT:
On the brink of the night and the morning
My coursers are wont to respire;
[respire = to rest; catch their breath]
But the Earth has just whispered a warning
That their flight must be swifter than fire;
They shall drink
the hot speed
of desire! . . .
PANTHEA:
O Spirit! pause, and tell whence is the
light
Which fills the cloud? the sun is yet unrisen.
SPIRIT: The
sun will rise not until noon. Apollo
[Apollo = god of sun]
10
Is held in heaven by wonder; and the light
Which fills this vapor, as the aërial hue
Of fountain-gazing roses fills the water,
Flows from thy mighty sister. . .
.
[
PANTHEA:
How thou art changed! I dare not look on
thee;
[thou, 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
Thy presence thus unveiled. The
Nereids tell
[Nereids = sea nymphs] 20
That on the day when the clear
hyaline
[hyaline = glassy surface of the sea]
Was cloven at thy uprise, and thou didst stand
Within a veinèd shell, which
floated on
[
Over the calm floor of the
crystal sea,
[see below, act III, sc. III, l. 65, p. 25]
Among the Ægean isles, and by the
shores
[Aegean sea, b/w
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
And all that dwells within them; till
grief cast
[grief cast eclipse:
Prometheus bound]
30
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.
Hearest thou not sounds i' the air which speak the love
Of all articulate beings? Feelest thou not
The inanimate winds enamored of
thee? List!
[Music.
. . . ]
VOICE
in the air, singing:
Life of Life, thy lips enkindle
[thy
=
With their love the breath between them;
And thy smiles before they
dwindle
50
Make the cold air fire . . . .
Child of Light! thy limbs are
burning
[Child of Light =
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. . . .
Which, like a sleeping swan, doth float
Upon the silver waves of thy sweet singing;
And thine doth like an angel sit
[thine = Prometheus’s]
Beside a helm conducting it,
Whilst all the winds with melody are ringing.
It seems to float ever, forever,
Upon that many-winding river,
Between mountains, woods, abysses,
80
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.
Meanwhile thy spirit lifts its pinions
[pinions =
wings]
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,
But, by the instinct of sweet music driven;
90
Till through Elysian garden
islets
[Elysian =
heavenly]
By thee most beautiful of pilots,
Where never mortal pinnace glided,
[pinnace = vessel, ship]
The boat of my desire is guided;
Realms where the air we breathe is love,
Which in the winds on the waves doth move,
Harmonizing this earth with what we feel
above.
[millennial utopia: heaven & earth in
correspondence; “as above, so below”]
We have passed Age's icy caves,
And Manhood's dark and tossing waves,
And Youth's smooth ocean, smiling
to betray;
100
Beyond the glassy gulfs we flee
Of shadow-peopled Infancy,
Through Death and Birth,
to a diviner
day;
A paradise of
vaulted bowers
[utopia]
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;
Which walk upon the sea, and
chant melodiously!
110
Act III,
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
The 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
On eldest faith, and hell's
coeval, fear;
[coeval
= contemporary] 10
And though my curses through the
pendulous air,
[pendulous = hanging]
Like snow on herbless peaks, fall
flake by flake,
[herbless = barren]
And cling to it; though under my
wrath's night
[it = soul of man]
It climb the crags of life, step after step,
[it = soul of man]
Which wound it,
as ice wounds unsandalled feet,
It yet remains supreme o'er misery,
[It = soul of man]
Aspiring,
unrepressed, yet soon to fall;
Even now have I
begotten a strange wonder,
That fatal child, the terror of the earth,
[Demogorgon]
Who waits but till the destined hour
arrive, [destined
hour: sounds millennial]
20
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.
Pour forth heaven's wine, Idæan
Ganymede, . . . [Olympians’
cupbearer, from
Drink! be the nectar circling
through your veins
30
The soul of joy, ye ever-living Gods,
Till exultation burst in one wide voice
Like music from Elysian winds.
[Elysian = heavenly]
And thou
[addressing
Thetis—see below]
Ascend beside me, veilèd in the light
Of the desire which makes thee one with me,
Thetis, bright image of eternity!
[mother by
Jupiter of Achilles & Demogorgon]
When thou didst cry, 'Insufferable might!
God! spare me! I sustain not the
quick flames,
[Jupiter
recalls his rape of Thetis]
The penetrating presence; all my being,
Like him whom the Numidian seps
did thaw
[Lucellus, poisoned in
Into a dew with poison, is dissolved,
Sinking through its foundations,'—even then
Two mighty spirits, mingling, made a third
[Jupiter
+ Thetis = Demogorgon]
Mightier than
either, which, unbodied now,
Between 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.
[gride = produce a grinding sound]
Victory! victory! Feel'st thou not, O world,
The earthquake of his chariot
thundering up
50
[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.
[dire = dreadful, terrible]
Descend, and follow me down the abyss.
I am thy child, as thou wert Saturn's child;
[Jupiter overthrew father Saturn]
Mightier than thee; and we must dwell together
Henceforth in darkness. Lift thy
lightnings not.
[Jupiter / Zeus = god of lightning]
The tyranny of
heaven none may retain,
Or reassume, or
hold, succeeding thee . . . .
JUPITER:
Detested prodigy!
[prodigy
= amazingly powerful offspring]
Even thus beneath the deep
Titanian prisons
[Titanian= of the Titans]
I trample thee! Thou lingerest?
Mercy! mercy!
No pity, no release, no respite! Oh,
That thou
wouldst make mine enemy my judge,
[enemy
= Prometheus]
Even where he hangs, seared by my
long revenge,
[he =
Prometheus]
On
Gentle, and just, and dreadless, is he not
The monarch of the world? What then art thou?
No refuge! no appeal! . . .
Ai, Ai!
The elements obey me not. I sink
80
Dizzily down, ever, forever, down. . . .
ACT III, SCENE II.—The
Mouth of a great River in the
. . .
OCEAN:
He sunk to the abyss? to the dark void?
[He
= Jupiter] 10
. . .
OCEAN:
Henceforth the fields of Heaven-reflecting sea
Which are my realm, will heave, unstained with blood,
Beneath the uplifting winds, like
plains of corn
20
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
[Proteus = a sea god]
The shadow of fair ships, as mortals see
The floating bark
of the light-laden moon
With that
white star, its sightless pilot's crest,
[Venus, the morning star—see l. 39 below]
Borne down the rapid sunset's ebbing sea;
Tracking their
path no more by blood and groans,
And desolation, and the mingled voice
30
Of slavery and
command; but by the light
Of wave-reflected
flowers, and floating odors,
And music soft,
and mild, free, gentle voices,
That sweetest
music, such as spirits love.
APOLLO:
And 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
[sphere I guide = sun]
The small, clear, silver lute of the young Spirit
That sits i' the morning star.
[morning star = Venus / Aphrodite, another body
of cosmic love]
OCEAN:
Thou must away;
Thy steeds will pause at even,
till when farewell.
[even = evening]
40
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,
[Nereids = sea nymphs]
Their wavering limbs borne on the windlike stream,
Their white arms lifted o'er their streaming hair,
With garlands pied and starry
sea-flower crowns,
[pied = splotched with color]
Hastening to grace their mighty sister's joy.
[A
sound of waves is heard.]
It is the unpastured sea hungering for calm.
Peace, monster; I come now. Farewell.
APOLLO:
Farewell.
50
ACT III, SCENE III.—
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
Are sweeter even than freedom long desired
And long delayed.
Shadow of beauty unbeheld; and ye,
Fair sister nymphs, who made long years of pain
Sweet to remember, through your love and care;
Henceforth we will not part.
There is a cave,
10
All overgrown with trailing odorous plants,
Which curtain out the day with leaves and flowers,
And paved with veinèd emerald; and a fountain
Leaps in the midst with an awakening sound.
From 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,
And bees; and all around are
mossy seats,
20
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.
What can hide man from mutability?
And if ye sigh, then I will smile; and thou,
Ione, shalt chant fragments of
sea-music,
[Ione = sea nymph, Nereid]
Until I weep, when ye shall smile away
The tears she brought, which yet were sweet to shed.
We will entangle buds and flowers
and beams
30
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,
For hidden
thoughts, each lovelier than the last,
Our
unexhausted spirits; and, like lutes
[stringed
instruments]
Touched by the skill of the
enamoured wind,
[enamoured = infatuated]
Weave harmonies divine, yet ever new,
From difference sweet where discord cannot be;
And hither come, sped on the
charmèd winds,
40
Which meet from all the points of heaven . . .
The echoes of the human world, which tell
Of 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,
Then radiant, as the mind arising
bright
50
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
[shall endow us with the immortal offspring . .
. ]
Of 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
[him = man]
Given and returned; swift shapes and sounds, which
grow 60
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,
Give her that curvèd shell, which
Proteus old
[see above, act II, sc. V, l. 23, p. 20]
Made Asia's nuptial boon . . .
[
IONE:
Thou most desired Hour, more loved and lovely
Than all thy sisters, this is the
mystic shell.
70
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:
Its sound must be at once both sweet and strange.
PROMETHEUS:
[Prometheus addresses the spirits of the hour as
charioteers]
Go, borne over the cities of
mankind
On whirlwind-footed coursers; once again
Outspeed the sun around the orbèd world;
And as thy chariot cleaves the kindling air,
Thou breathe into the many-folded
shell,
80
Loosening its mighty music; it
shall be
[shell bearing Venus / love is now a horn]
As thunder mingled with clear echoes; then
Return; and thou shalt dwell beside our cave.
[Instructor’s
note:
Compare the musical shell-horn in passage above to traditions of the Archangel
Gabriel’s trumpet announcing Judgment Day.]
And thou, O Mother Earth!—
THE EARTH:
I hear, I feel;
Thy lips are on me, and thy touch runs down
Even to the adamantine central
gloom
[adamantine = crystalline]
Along these marble nerves; 't is life, 't is joy,
And,
through my
withered, old, and icy frame
The warmth of an
immortal youth shoots down
Circling. Henceforth the many
children fair
90
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,
Draining the poison of despair, shall take
And interchange sweet nutriment . . . .
The dew-mists of my sunless sleep
shall float
100
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;
And
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.'
Cease they to love, and move, and breathe, and speak,
Who die?
THE EARTH:
It would avail
not to reply;
110
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
In 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
Of the calm moonbeams, a soft
influence mild,
120
Shall clothe the forests and the fields, ay, even
The crag-built deserts of the
barren deep,
[barren deep = ocean floor]
With ever-living leaves, and fruits, and flowers.
And
thou!
there is a cavern where my spirit
[thou
= winged child-spirit below, l. 147]
Was panted forth in anguish whilst thy pain
Made my heart mad, and those who
did inhale it
[cf. Oracle at Delphi]
Became mad too, and built a
temple there,
[compare II.iii,
ll. 2-10]
And spoke, and were oracular, and lured
The erring nations round to mutual war,
And faithless faith, such as Jove
kept with thee;
130
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;
It feeds the quick growth of the serpent vine,
And the dark linkèd ivy tangling wild,
And budding, blown, or odor-faded blooms
Which star the winds with points of colored light
As they rain through them, and bright golden globes
Of fruit suspended in their own
green heaven,
140
And through their veinèd leaves and amber stems
The flowers whose purple and
translucid bowls
[translucid = translucent]
Stand ever mantling with aërial dew,
The drink of spirits; and it circles round,
Like 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.]
[“The Spirit of the Earth”]
This is my torch-bearer;
Who let his lamp out in old time with gazing
On eyes from which he kindled it
anew
150
With love, which is as fire,
sweet daughter mine,
[daughter =
For such is that within thine own. Run, wayward,
And guide this company beyond the
peak
[company = those waiting for Prom’s freedom]
Of Bacchic Nysa, Mænad-haunted
mountain,
[Nysa=place assoc. w/ Dionysus or Bacchus]
And beyond Indus and its tribute
rivers,
[Indus river on Indian subcontinent, now in
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,
Where ever lies, on unerasing
waves,
160
The image of a
temple, built above,
Distinct with column, arch, and architrave,
And palm-like capital, and overwrought,
And populous most with living imagery,
Praxitelean shapes, whose marble
smiles
[Praxiteles = classical Greek sculptor]
Fill the hushed air with everlasting love.
It is deserted now, but once it bore
Thy name, Prometheus; there the
emulous youths
[emulous = imitative, emulating]
Bore to thy honor through the divine gloom
The lamp which was thine emblem;
even as those
170
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!
Beside that
temple is the destined cave.
ACT III, SCENE IV.—A
IONE:
Sister, it is not earthly; how it glides
[it
= spirit of the earth]
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,
The splendor 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
[pop. contellations = extraterrestrial
intelligence?]
The loveliest of the planets . . .
Before Jove reigned
It loved our
sister
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
[legendary snake whose bite caused thirst]
It made its childish confidence,
and told her
20
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.
[Panthea
addresses Asia / love]
THE SPIRIT OF THE EARTH:
[running
to
Mother, dearest mother!
May 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?
Can cherish thee unenvied. Speak, I pray;
Thy simple talk once solaced, now
delights.
[solaced = consoled]
SPIRIT OF THE
EARTH: Mother, I am grown wiser, though a
child
Cannot be wise like thee, within this day;
And happier too; happier and wiser both.
Thou knowest that toads, and snakes, and loathly worms,
And venomous and malicious beasts, and boughs
That bore ill berries in the woods, were ever
An hindrance to my walks o'er the green world;
And that, among the haunts of
humankind,
40
Hard-featured men, or with proud, angry looks,
Or cold, staid gait, or false and hollow smiles,
Or the dull sneer of self-loved ignorance,
Or other such foul masks, with which ill thoughts
Hide that fair being whom we spirits call man;
And women too, ugliest of all things evil,
(Though fair, even in a world where thou art fair,
When good and kind, free and sincere like thee)
When false or frowning made me sick at heart
To pass them, though they slept,
and I unseen.
50
Well, my path
lately lay through a great city
Into the woody hills surrounding it;
A sentinel was sleeping at the gate;
When there
was heard
a sound, so loud,
it shook
The towers amid the moonlight, yet more sweet
Than any voice but thine, sweetest of all;
A long, long sound, as it would never end;
And
all the
inhabitants
leapt suddenly
Out of their
rest, and gathered in the streets,
Looking in
wonder up to Heaven, while yet
60
The music pealed along. I hid myself
Within a fountain in the public square,
Where I lay like the reflex of the moon
Seen in a wave under green leaves; and soon
Those
ugly human
shapes and visages
Of which I spoke as having wrought me pain,
Passed floating
through the air and fading still
Into the winds
that scattered them; and those
From whom
they passed
seemed mild and lovely forms
After some foul disguise had
fallen, and
all
70
Were somewhat
changed, and after brief surprise
And greetings
of delighted wonder, all
Went to their sleep again; and when the dawn
Came, wouldst thou think that
toads, and snakes, and efts,
[efts = lizards, newts]
Could e'er be beautiful? yet so they were,
And that
with little
change of shape or hue;
All things had
put their evil nature off;
I cannot tell my joy, when o'er a lake,
Upon a drooping bough with nightshade twined,
I saw two azure halcyons clinging
downward
[halcyons = kingfisher birds] 80
And thinning one bright bunch of amber berries,
With quick long beaks, and in the deep there lay
Those lovely forms imaged as in a sky;
So with my thoughts full of these happy changes,
We meet again, the happiest change of all. . . .
The
SPIRIT OF THE HOUR
enters
PROMETHEUS:
We feel what thou hast heard and seen; yet speak.
SPIRIT OF THE
HOUR: Soon as the sound had ceased whose
thunder filled
The abysses of the sky and the wide earth,
There was a
change; the impalpable thin air
100
And the all-circling sunlight were transformed,
As if the sense
of love, dissolved in them,
Had folded itself
round the spherèd world.
My vision then
grew clear, and I could see
Into the
mysteries of the universe. . . . Alas,
Whither has wandered now my partial tongue
When all remains untold which ye would hear?
As I have said, I floated to the earth;
It was, as
it is still,
the pain of bliss
[pain
of bliss = cf. sublime]
To move, to
breathe, to be. I wandering went
Among the haunts and dwellings of mankind,
And first was disappointed not to see
Such mighty change as I had felt within
Expressed in outward things; but
soon I looked,
130
And behold,
thrones were
kingless, and men walked
One with the
other even as spirits do—
None fawned, none trampled; hate, disdain, or fear,
Self-love or self-contempt, on human brows
No more
inscribed, as o'er the gate of hell,
'All hope abandon, ye who enter here.'
[from Dante,
Inferno]
None frowned, none trembled, none with eager fear
Gazed on another's eye of cold command,
Until the subject of a tyrant's will
Became, worse fate, the abject of
his own,
140
Which spurred him, like an outspent horse, to death.
None wrought his lips in truth-entangling lines
Which smiled the lie his tongue disdained to speak.
None, with firm sneer, trod out in his own heart
The sparks of love and hope till there remained
Those bitter ashes, a soul self-consumed,
And the wretch crept a vampire among men,
Infecting all with his own hideous ill.
None talked that
common, false, cold, hollow talk
Which makes the heart deny the
yes
it breathes,
150
Yet question that unmeant hypocrisy
With such a self-mistrust as has no name.
And women, too,
frank, beautiful, and kind,
As the free heaven which rains fresh light and dew
On the wide earth, passed;
gentle,
radiant forms,
From custom's
evil taint exempt and pure;
Speaking the
wisdom once they could not think,
Looking emotions
once they feared to feel,
And changed to all which once they dared
not be,
Yet being now, made earth like
heaven; nor pride,
160
Nor jealousy, nor envy, nor ill shame,
The bitterest of those drops of treasured gall,
Spoiled the sweet taste of the
nepenthe, love.
[nepenthe = drug of forgetfulness]
Thrones,
altars, judgment-seats, and prisons,
wherein,
And beside which, by wretched men were borne
Sceptres, tiaras,
swords, and chains, and tomes
Of reasoned
wrong, glozed on by ignorance,
[glozed on = interpreted positively]
Were like those monstrous and barbaric shapes,
The ghosts of a
no-more-remembered fame
Which from their unworn obelisks,
look forth [memorial
pillar, cf.
In triumph o'er the palaces and tombs
Of those who were their conquerors; mouldering round,
Those imaged to the pride of kings and priests
A dark yet mighty
faith, a power as wide
As is the world
it wasted, and are now
But an
astonishment; even so the tools
[astonishment = wonder, marvel]
And emblems of its last captivity,
Amid the dwellings of the peopled earth,
Stand, not o'erthrown, but unregarded now.
And those foul shapes,—abhorred
by god and man,
180
Which, under many a name and many a form
Strange, savage, ghastly, dark, and execrable,
Were Jupiter, the tyrant of the world,
And which the nations, panic-stricken, served
With blood, and hearts broken by long hope, and love
Dragged to his altars soiled and garlandless,
And slain among men's unreclaiming tears,
Flattering the thing they feared, which fear was hate,—
Frown, mouldering fast, o'er their abandoned shrines.
The painted veil, by those who
were, called life,
190
Which mimicked, as with colors idly spread,
All men believed and hoped, is torn aside;
The loathsome
mask has fallen, the man remains
Sceptreless,
free, uncircumscribed, but man
Equal, unclassed,
tribeless, and nationless,
Exempt from awe,
worship, degree, the king
Over himself;
just, gentle, wise; but man
Passionless—no,
yet free from guilt or pain,
Which were, for his will made or suffered them;
Nor yet exempt, though ruling
them like slaves,
200
From chance, and death, and mutability,
The clogs of that which else
might oversoar
[clogs = impediments]
The loftiest star of unascended heaven,
Pinnacled dim in the intense
inane.
[formless void of infinite space]
Act IV: SCENE—A
part of the Forest near the
VOICE OF
UNSEEN SPIRITS: The pale stars are gone!
For the sun, their swift shepherd
To their folds them compelling,
[folds = pens, shelters]
In the depths of the dawn,
Hastes, in meteor-eclipsing array, and they flee
Beyond his blue dwelling,
As fawns flee the leopard,
But where are ye?
A Train of dark Forms and Shadows passes by
confusedly, singing.
Here, oh, here!
We bear the bier
10
Of the father of many a cancelled year!
Spectres we
[specters = ghosts]
Of the dead Hours be;
We bear Time to his tomb in eternity. . . .
IONE:
Whither, oh, whither?
PANTHEA:
To the dark, to the past, to the dead.
VOICE OF
UNSEEN SPIRITS: Bright clouds float in
heaven,
40
Dew-stars gleam on earth,
Waves assemble on ocean,
They are gathered and driven
By the storm of delight, by the panic of glee!
They shake with emotion,
They dance in their mirth.
But where are ye?
[ye = you = the dead past?]
The pine boughs are singing
Old songs with new gladness,
The billows and fountains
50
Fresh music are flinging,
Like the notes of a spirit from land and from sea;
The
storms mock the mountains
With the thunder of gladness,
But where are ye? . . .
SEMICHORUS OF
HOURS: The voice of the Spirits of Air and
of Earth
Has
drawn back the
figured curtain of sleep,
[the unconscious?]
Which covered our being and darkened our birth
In the deep.
A VOICE:
In the deep?
SEMICHORUS II:
Oh! below the deep.
60
SEMICHORUS I:
An hundred ages we had been kept
Cradled in visions of hate and care,
And each one who waked as his brother slept
Found the truth—
SEMICHORUS II:
Worse than his visions were!
SEMICHORUS I:
We have heard the lute of Hope in sleep;
We have known the voice of Love in dreams;
We have felt the wand of Power, and leap—
SEMICHORUS II:
As the billows leap in the morning beams! . . .
CHORUS OF
HOURS: Whence come ye, so wild and so
fleet,
For sandals of lightning are on
your feet,
90
And your wings are soft and swift as thought,
And your eyes are as love which is veilèd not?
CHORUS OF SPIRITS:
We come from
the mind
Of humankind,
Which was late so
dusk, and obscene, and blind;
Now 't is an
ocean
Of clear emotion,
A heaven of
serene and mighty motion. . . .
Years after years,
Through blood, and tears,
And a thick hell of hatreds, and hopes, and fears,
We waded and flew,
120
And the islets were few
Where the bud-blighted flowers of happiness grew.
Our feet now, every palm,
Are sandalled with calm,
And the dew of our wings is a rain of balm;
And,
beyond our
eyes,
The human love
lies,
Which makes all it gazes on Paradise. .
. .
CHORUS OF SPIRITS
AND HOURS:
Then weave the web of the mystic measure;
From the depths of the sky and the ends of the
earth,
130
Come, swift Spirits of might and of pleasure,
Fill the dance and the music of mirth,
As the waves of a thousand streams rush by
To an ocean of splendor and harmony!
CHORUS OF SPIRITS:
And our
singing shall build
In the void's loose field
[void = empty space]
A world for the
Spirit of Wisdom to wield;
We will take our
plan
From the new
world of man,
And our work
shall be called the Promethean. . . .
PANTHEA:
Ha! they are gone!
IONE:
Yet feel you no delight
180
From the past sweetness?
PANTHEA:
As the bare green hill,
When some soft cloud vanishes into rain,
Laughs with a thousand drops of sunny water
To the unpavilioned sky! . . .
PANTHEA:
But see where, through two openings in the forest
Which hanging branches
overcanopy,
[overcanopy = form a roof]
And where two runnels of a
rivulet,
[runnels of a rivulet = parts of a small
stream]
Between the close moss violet-inwoven,
Have
made their
path of melody, like sisters
Who part with
sighs that they may meet in smiles,
Turning their dear disunion to an isle
200
Of lovely grief,
a wood of sweet sad thoughts;
Two visions of
strange radiance float upon
The ocean-like enchantment of strong sound,
Which flows intenser, keener, deeper yet,
Under the ground and through the windless air.
IONE:
I see a
chariot like that thinnest boat
In which
the
mother of the months is borne . . .
.
[mother of months =
the moon]
Its wheels are solid clouds,
azure and gold . . .
;
Within it
sits a
wingèd infant—white
[contrast lifeless white of moon with earth’s
colors below]
Its
countenance, like the
whiteness of
bright snow,
220
Its plumes
are as feathers of sunny
frost,
Its limbs
gleam
white, through the wind-flowing folds
Of its
white
robe, woof of ethereal
pearl,
Its hair is
white,
the brightness of
white light
Scattered in strings;
yet its two
eyes are heavens
Of liquid
darkness, which the Deity
Within seems pouring, as a storm is poured
From jagged clouds, out of their arrowy lashes,
Tempering the cold and radiant air around
With fire that is not brightness;
in its hand
230
It sways a quivering moonbeam, from whose point
A guiding power directs the chariot's prow
Over its wheelèd clouds, which as they roll
Over the grass, and flowers, and waves, wake sounds,
Sweet as a singing rain of silver dew.
PANTHEA:
And from the other opening in the wood
Rushes, with loud and whirlwind harmony,
A sphere, which
is as many thousand spheres;
Solid as crystal, yet through all its mass
Flow, as through empty space,
music and light;
240
Ten thousand orbs involving and involved,
Purple and azure, white, green and
golden,
Sphere within sphere; and every space between
Peopled with unimaginable shapes,
Such as ghosts
dream dwell in the lampless deep;
Yet each inter-transpicuous; and
they whirl
[transpicuous = transparent]
Over each other with a thousand motions,
Upon a thousand sightless axles spinning,
And with the force of self-destroying swiftness,
Intensely, slowly, solemnly, roll
on,
250
Kindling with mingled sounds, and many tones,
Intelligible words and music wild.
With mighty whirl the multitudinous orb
Grinds the
bright brook into an azure
mist
Of
elemental
subtlety, like light;
And the
wild
odor of the forest flowers,
The
music
of the living grass and air,
The emerald light of leaf-entangled beams,
Round its intense yet self-conflicting speed
Seem kneaded into
one aërial
mass
260
Which drowns
the sense. Within the orb itself,
Pillowed upon its alabaster arms,
Like to a child o'erwearied with sweet toil,
On its own folded wings and wavy hair
The Spirit of the
Earth is laid asleep,
And you can
see its
little lips are moving,
Amid the changing light of their
own
smiles,
Like one who
talks of what he loves in dream.
IONE:
'T is only mocking the orb's harmony.
[Panthea’s description is only a pale imitation of the
vision itself]
PANTHEA:
And from a star upon its forehead shoot,
270
Like swords of azure fire or golden spears
With tyrant-quelling myrtle overtwined,
Embleming heaven and earth united now,
Vast beams like
spokes of some invisible wheel
Which whirl as
the orb whirls, swifter than thought,
Filling the abyss with sun-like
lightnings,
[sublime]
And perpendicular now, and now transverse,
Pierce the dark soil, and as they pierce and pass
Make
bare the
secrets of the earth's deep heart;
Infinite mine of adamant and
gold,
280
Valueless stones, and unimagined gems,
And caverns on crystalline columns poised
With vegetable silver overspread; . . .
The beams flash on
And make appear the melancholy ruins
Of
cancelled
cycles; . . .
sepulchred
emblems
[sepulchred = entombed]
Of dead destruction,
ruin within
ruin!
The wrecks beside
of many a city vast,
Whose population
which the earth grew over
Was mortal,
but not human; see, they lie,
Their
monstrous
works, and uncouth skeletons,
Their statues, homes and fanes; prodigious shapes
300
Huddled in gray
annihilation . . .
And weed-overgrown continents of earth,
Increased and multiplied like summer worms
On an abandoned corpse, till the blue globe
Wrapped deluge round it like a
cloke, and they
[cloke = cloak]
Yelled, gasped, and were
abolished; or
some God,
Whose throne was
in a comet, passed, and cried,
Be not! and like
my words they were no more.
THE EARTH: The
joy, the triumph, the delight, the madness!
The boundless, overflowing, bursting
gladness,
320
The vaporous exultation not to be confined!
Ha! ha! the animation of delight
Which wraps me, like an atmosphere of light,
And bears me as a cloud is borne by its own wind.
THE MOON:
Brother mine, calm wanderer,
[Brother mine: Moon addresses Earth]
Happy globe of land and air,
Some Spirit is
darted like a beam from thee,
Which penetrates my frozen frame,
And passes with the
warmth of
flame,
With
love, and
odor, and deep melody
330
Through me, through me!
THE EARTH:
Ha! ha! the caverns of my hollow mountains,
My cloven fire-crags, sound-exulting fountains,
Laugh with a vast and inextinguishable laughter.
The oceans, and the deserts, and the abysses,
And the deep air's unmeasured wildernesses,
Answer from all their clouds and billows, echoing after.
. . .
THE MOON:
The snow upon my lifeless mountains
Is loosened into living fountains,
My solid oceans flow, and sing and shine;
A spirit from my heart bursts forth,
It clothes with unexpected birth
360
My cold bare bosom. Oh, it must
be thine
[the earth’s spirit]
On mine, on mine!
Gazing on thee I feel, I know,
Green stalks burst forth, and bright flowers
grow,
And living shapes upon my bosom move;
Music is in the sea and air,
Wingèd clouds soar here and there
Dark with the rain new buds are dreaming of:
'T is love, all love!
[the moon reflects and shares the love and life
of earth]
THE EARTH:
It interpenetrates my granite mass,
[It = love, or life and love]
370
Through tangled roots and trodden clay doth
pass
Into the utmost leaves and delicatest flowers;
Upon the winds, among the clouds 't is spread,
It wakes a life in the forgotten dead,—
They breathe a spirit up from their obscurest bowers;
And like a storm bursting its cloudy prison
With thunder, and with whirlwind, has arisen
Out of the lampless caves of unimagined being;
With earthquake shock and swiftness making
shiver
Thought's stagnant chaos, unremoved forever,
380
Till hate, and
fear, and pain, light-vanquished shadows, fleeing,
Leave Man . . . .
Man,
one harmonious soul of many a soul,
400
Whose nature is its own divine control,
Where all things flow to all, as rivers to the sea;
Familiar acts are beautiful through love;
Labor, and pain, and grief,
in life's green grove
Sport like tame beasts; none knew how gentle they could
be! . . .
All things confess his strength. Through the
cold mass
[his = man’s]
Of marble and of color his dreams pass—
Bright threads whence mothers weave the robes their
children wear;
Language is a perpetual Orphic song,
[Orphic < Orpheus, first poet in Greek myth]
Which rules with dædal harmony a throng
[daedal = winged, soaring]
Of thoughts and forms, which else senseless and shapeless
were.
The lightning is his slave; heaven's utmost
deep
Gives up her stars, and like a flock of sheep
They pass before his eye, are
numbered, and roll on!
420
The tempest is his steed, he strides the air;
And the abyss shouts from her depth laid bare,
'Heaven, hast thou secrets? Man unveils me; I have none.'
THE MOON:
The shadow of
white death has
passed
From my path in heaven at last,
A clinging shroud of solid frost and sleep;
And through my newly woven bowers,
Wander happy paramours . . . .
[paramours = lovers]
THE MOON:
Thou art folded, thou art lying:
[addressing
the Earth]
In the light which is undying
Of thine own joy, and heaven's smile divine;
All suns and constellations shower
440
On thee a light, a life, a power,
Which doth array thy sphere; thou pourest thine
On mine, on mine!
THE EARTH:
I spin beneath my pyramid of night [pyramid = cone-like
shadow of earth’s night-side]
Which points into the heavens, dreaming
delight,
Murmuring victorious joy in my enchanted sleep;
As a youth lulled in love-dreams faintly
sighing,
Under the shadow of his beauty lying,
Which round his rest a watch of light and warmth doth
keep.
THE MOON:
As in the soft and sweet eclipse,
450
When soul meets soul on lovers' lips,
High hearts are calm, and brightest eyes are
dull;
So when thy shadow falls on me,
Then am I mute and still, by thee
Covered; of thy love, Orb most beautiful,
Full, oh, too full!
Thou art speeding round the sun,
Brightest world of many a one;
Green and azure sphere which shinest
With a light which is divinest
460
Among all the lamps of Heaven
To whom life and light is given;
I, thy crystal paramour,
[paramour = lover]
Borne beside thee by a power
Like the polar
Magnet-like, of lovers' eyes;
I, a most enamored maiden,
[enamored = love-struck]
Whose weak brain is overladen
With the pleasure of her love,
Maniac-like around thee move,
Gazing, an insatiate bride,
470
On thy form from every side . . . .
THE EARTH:
And the weak day weeps
That it should be so.
O gentle Moon, the voice of thy delight
Falls on me like thy clear and tender light
Soothing the seaman borne the summer night
Through isles forever calm;
O gentle Moon, thy crystal accents pierce
The caverns of my pride's deep
universe,
500
Charming the
tiger joy, whose tramplings fierce
Made wounds which need thy balm. . . .
PANTHEA:
Peace, peace! a mighty Power, which is as darkness,
510
Is rising out of Earth, and from the sky
Is showered like night, and from within the air
Bursts, like eclipse which had been gathered up
Into the pores of sunlight; the bright visions,
Wherein the singing Spirits rode and shone,
Gleam like pale meteors through a watery night.
IONE:
There is a sense of words upon mine ear.
PANTHEA:
An universal sound like words: Oh, list!
[list = listen]
DEMOGORGON:
Thou, Earth, calm empire of a happy soul,
Sphere of divinest shapes and harmonies,
520
Beautiful orb! gathering as thou dost roll
The love which paves thy path along the skies:
THE EARTH:
I hear: I am as a drop of dew that dies.
DEMOGORGON:
Thou, Moon, which gazest on the nightly Earth
With wonder, as it gazes upon thee;
Whilst each to men, and beasts, and the swift birth
Of birds, is beauty, love, calm, harmony:
THE MOON:
I hear: I am a leaf shaken by thee.
DEMOGORGON:
Ye kings of suns and stars, Dæmons and Gods,
Ethereal Dominations , , , ,
A VOICE
(from above):
Our
great Republic hears: we are blessed, and bless.
DEMOGORGON:
Ye happy dead, whom beams of brightest verse
Are clouds to hide, not colors to portray,
Whether your nature is that universe
Which once ye saw and suffered—
A VOICE FROM
BENEATH: Or, as they
Whom we have left, we change and pass away.
DEMOGORGON:
Ye elemental Genii, who have homes
[Genii = virtues or spirits]
From man's high mind even to the central stone
540
Of sullen lead; from Heaven's star-fretted domes
To the dull weed some sea-worm battens on:
A CONFUSED
VOICE: We hear: thy words waken Oblivion.
DEMOGORGON:
Spirits, whose homes are flesh; ye beasts and birds,
Ye worms and fish; ye living leaves and buds;
Lightning and wind; and ye untamable herds,
Meteors and mists, which throng air's
solitudes:
A VOICE:
Thy voice to us is wind among still woods.
DEMOGORGON:
Man, who wert once a despot and a slave . . .
Through the dim night of this immortal day:
ALL:
Speak: thy strong words may never pass away.
DEMOGORGON:
This is the day which down the void abysm
At the Earth-born's spell yawns for Heaven's despotism,
And Conquest is dragged captive through the
deep;
Love, from its awful throne of
patient power
[awful = awesome]
In the wise heart, from the last giddy hour
Of dread endurance, from the slippery, steep,
And narrow verge of crag-like
agony, springs
560
And folds over the world its healing wings.
Gentleness, Virtue, Wisdom, and Endurance—
These are the seals of that most firm assurance
Which bars the pit over Destruction's strength
, , , ,
To suffer woes which Hope thinks
infinite;
570
To forgive wrongs darker than death or night;
To defy Power, which seems omnipotent;
To love, and
bear; to hope till Hope creates
From its own
wreck the thing it contemplates;
Neither to change, nor falter, nor repent;
This, like thy glory, Titan, is to be
Good, great and joyous, beautiful and free;
This is alone Life; Joy, Empire, and Victory!
END
—
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