For the gales of swift-bearing have sent me a sound,

And the clank of the iron, the malleted blow,

Smote down the profound

Of my caverns of old,

And struck the red light in a blush from my brow,

Till I sprang up unsandalled, in haste to behold,

And rushed forth on my chariot of wings manifold.

Prometheus. Alas me!-alas me! Ye offspring of Tethys who bore at her breast

Many children; and eke of Oceanus,he,

Coiling still around earth with perpetual

The Titans, children of the Heaven and Earth,

What time disdaining in their rugged souls

My subtle machinations, they assumed It was an easy thing for force to take The mastery of fate. My mother, then, Who is called not only Themis but Earth

too,

(Her single beauty joys in many names,) Did teach me with reiterant prophecy What future should be,-and how conquering gods

Should not prevail by strength and violence,

But by guile only. When I told them

SO

They would not deign to contemplate the truth

On all sides round; whereat I deemed it best

To lead my willing mother upwardly, And set my Themis face to face with Zeus

As willing to receive her! Tartarus, With its abysmal cloister of the Dark, Because I gave that counsel, covers up The antique Chronos and his siding hosts;

And, by that counsel helped, the king of gods Hath recompensed me with these bitter pangs!

For kingship wears a cancer at the heart,

Distrust in friendship. Do ye also ask, What crime it is for which he tortures

For which wrong I am bent down in these pangs

Dreadful to suffer, mournful to behold,— And I, who pitied man, am thought myself

Unworthy of pity,-while I render out Deep rhythms of anguish 'neath the harping hand

That strikes me thus!-a sight to shame your Zeus!

Chorus. Hard as thy chains, and cold as all these rocks,

Is he, Prometheus, who withholds his heart

From joining in thy woe. I yearned before

To fly this sight-and, now I gaze on it, I sicken inwards.

Prometheus. To my friends, indeed, I must be a sad sight. Chorus.

And didst thou sin

No more than so?

Prometheus. I did restrain besides My mortals from premeditating death. Chorus. How didst thou medicine

the plague-fear of death? Prometheus. I set blind Hopes to inhabit in their house.

Chorus. By that gift, thou didst help thy mortals well.

Prometheus. I gave them also,-fire, Chorus. And have they now, Those creatures of a day, the red-eyed fire?

Prometheus. They have! and shall learn by it many arts.

Chorus. And, truly, for such sins
Zeus tortures thee,

And will remit no anguish? Is there

An easy thing to stand aloof from pain
And lavish exhortation and advice
On one vexed sorely by it. I have
known

All in prevision! By my choice, my choice,

I freely sinned-I will confess my sin-And helping mortals, found mine own despair!

I did not think indeed that I should pine Beneath such pangs against such skiey rocks,

Doomed to this drear hill and no neighboring

Of any life!-but mourn not ye for griefs I bear to-day!-hear rather, dropping down

To the plain, how other woes creep on

Oceanus. I reach the bourne of my weary road,

Where I may see and answer thee,
Prometheus, in thine agony!

On the back of the quick-winged bird
I glode,

And I bridled him in

With the will of a god,

Behold thy sorrow aches in me, Constrained by the force of kin. Nay, though that tie were all undone, For the life of none beneath the sun, Would I seek a larger benison

Than I seek for thine!

And thou shalt learn my words are truth,

That no fair parlance of the mouth
Grows falsely out of mine!
Now give me a deed to prove my
faith,-

For no faster friend is named in breath
Than I, Oceanus, am thine.

Prometheus. Ha! what has brought thee? Hast thou also come

To look upon my woe? How hast thou dared

To leave the depths called after thee, the caves

Self-hewn and self-roofed with spontaneous rock,

To visit Earth, the mother of my chain? Hast come indeed to view my doom and mourn

That I should sorrow thus? Gaze on, and see

How I, the fast friend of your Zeus,→ how I

The erector of the empire in his hand,Am bent beneath that hand in this despair!

Oceanus. Prometheus, I behold,and I would fain

Exhort thee, though already subtle enough,

To a better wisdom. Titan, know thyself,

And take new softness to thy manners, since

A new king rules the gods. If words like these,

Harsh words and trenchant, thou wilt fling abroad,

Zeus haply, though he sit so far and high,

May hear thee do it; and, so, this wrath of his

Which now affects thee fiercely, shall