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(From Prometheus Unbound, Act I)
MONARCH of gods and demons, and all spirits | |
| But One, who throng those bright and rolling worlds | |
| Which thou and I alone of living things | |
| Behold with sleepless eyes! regard this earth, | |
| Made multitudinous with thy slaves, whom thou | 5 |
| Requitest for knee-worship, prayer, and praise, | |
| And toil, and hecatombs of broken hearts, | |
| With fear and self-contempt and barren hope. | |
| Whilst me, who am thy foe, eyeless in hate, | |
| Hast thou made reign and triumph, 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 | |
| Till they seemed years, torture and solitude, | |
| Scorn and despair, these are mine empire, | 15 |
| More glorious far than that which thou surveyest | |
| From thine unenvied throne, O mighty God! | |
| Almighty, had I deigned to share the shame | |
| Of thine ill tyranny, and hung not here | |
| Nailed to this wall of eagle-baffling mountain, | 20 |
| Black, wintry, dead, unmeasured; without herb, | |
| Insect, or beast, or shape or sound of life. | |
| Ah me, alas! pain, pain ever, for ever! | |
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| No change, no pause, no hope! Yet I endure. | |
| I ask the earth, have not the mountains felt? | 25 |
| I ask yon heaven, the all-beholding sun, | |
| Has it not seen? The sea, in storm or calm, | |
| Heaven’s ever-changing shadow, spread below, | |
| Have its deaf waves not heard my agony? | |
| Ah me! alas, pain, pain ever, for ever! | 30 |
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| The crawling glaciers pierce me with the spears | |
| Of their moon-freezing crystals; the bright chains | |
| Eat with their burning cold into my bones. | |
| Heaven’s winged hound, polluting from thy lips | |
| His beak in poison not his own, tears up | 35 |
| My heart; and shapeless sights come wandering by, | |
| The ghastly people of the realm of dream, | |
| Mocking me; and the earthquake-fiends are charged | |
| To wrench the rivets from my quivering wounds | |
| When the rocks split and close again behind: | 40 |
| While from their loud abysses howling throng | |
| The genii of the storm, urging the rage | |
| Of whirlwind, and afflict me with keen hail. | |
| And yet to me welcome is day and night, | |
| Whether one breaks the hoar frost of the morn, | 45 |
| Or starry, dim, and slow, the other climbs | |
| The leaden-colored east; for then they lead | |
| The wingless, crawling hours, one among whom | |
| —As some dark priest hales the reluctant victim— | |
| 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 | |
| Will hunt thee undefended through the wide heaven! | |
| How will thy soul, cloven to its depth with terror, | 55 |
| 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 | |
| Once breathed on thee I would recall. Ye mountains, | |
| Whose many-voiced echoes, through the mist | 60 |
| Of cataracts, flung the thunder of that spell! | |
| Ye icy springs, stagnant with wrinkling frost, | |
| Which vibrated to hear me, and then crept | |
| Shuddering through India! Thou serenest air, | |
| Through which the sun walks burning without beams! | 65 |
| And ye swift whirlwinds, who on poised wings | |
| Hung mute and moveless o’er yon hushed abyss, | |
| As thunder, louder than your own, made rock | |
| The orbed world! If then my words had power, | |
| Though I am changed so that aught evil wish | 70 |
| Is dead within; although no memory be | |
| Of what is hate, let them not lose it now! | |
| What was that curse? for ye all heard me speak. | |
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