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From the Greek by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
From “Prometheus”
O HOLY Æther, and swift-winged Winds, | |
| And River-wells, and laughter innumerous | |
| Of yon Sea-waves! Earth, mother of us all, | |
| And all-viewing cyclic Sun, I cry on you,— | |
| Behold me a god, what I endure from gods! | 5 |
| Behold, with throe on throe, | |
| How, wasted by this woe, | |
| I wrestle down the myriad years of Time! | |
| Behold, how fast around me | |
| The new King of the happy ones sublime | 10 |
| Has flung the chain he forged, has shamed and bound me! | |
| Woe, woe! to-day’s woe and the coming morrow’s | |
| I cover with one groan. And where is found me | |
| A limit to these sorrows? | |
| And yet what word do I say? I have foreknown | 15 |
| Clearly all things that should be; nothing done | |
| Comes sudden to my soul—and I must bear | |
| What is ordained with patience, being aware | |
| Necessity doth front the universe | |
| With an invincible gesture. Yet this curse | 20 |
| Which strikes me now, I find it hard to brave | |
| In silence or in speech. Because I gave | |
| Honor to mortals, I have yoked my soul | |
| To this compelling fate. Because I stole | |
| The secret fount of fire, whose bubbles went | 25 |
| Over the ferrule’s brim, and manward sent | |
| Art’s mighty means and perfect rudiment, | |
| That sin I expiate in this agony, | |
| Hung here in fetters, ’neath the blanching sky. | |
| Ah, ah me! what a sound, | 30 |
| What a fragrance sweeps up from a pinion unseen | |
| Of a god, or a mortal, or nature between, | |
| Sweeping up to this rock where the earth has her bound, | |
| To have sight of my pangs, or some guerdon obtain— | |
| Lo, a god in the anguish, a god in the chain! | 35 |
| The god Zeus hateth sore, | |
| And his gods hate again, | |
| As many as tread on his glorified floor, | |
| Because I loved mortals too much evermore. | |
| Alas me! what a murmur and motion I hear, | 40 |
| As of birds flying near! | |
| And the air undersings | |
| The light stroke of their wings— | |
| And all life that approaches I wait for in fear. | |
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