PROMETHEUS BOUND.

SCENE.-STRENGTH and FORCE, HEPHASTUS and PROMETHEUS, at

the Rocks.

Strength.

WE reach the utmost limit of the earth,

The Scythian track, the desert without man,—
And now, Hephaestus, thou must needs fulfill
The mandate of our father, and, with links
Indissoluble of adamantine chains,
Fasten against this beetling precipice,
This guilty god! Because he filched away
Thine own bright flower, the glory of plastic fire,
And gifted mortals with it,-such a sin,
It doth behoove he expiate to the gods,
And learn free service to the rule of Zeus,
And leave disused his trick of loving man.
Hephaestus. O Strength and Force,—for you, our
Zeus's will

Presents a deed for doing.-No more !—but I,
I lack your daring, up this storm-rent chasm,
To fix with violent hands a kindred god,
Howbeit necessity compels me so

That I must dare it,—and our Zeus commands
With word as heavy as bolts-inevitable!
Ho!-lofty son of Themis, who is sage,
Thee loth, I loth, must rivet fast in chains
Against this rocky height unclomb by man,
Where never human voice nor face shall find
Out thee, who lov'st them!-where thy beauty's

flower,

Scorched in the sun's clear heat, shall fade away,
And night come up with garniture of stars
To comfort thee with shadow, and the sun
Disperse, with retrickt beams, the morning frosts;
And through all changes, sense of present woe
Shall vex thee sore, because, with none of them
There comes a hand to free. Such fruit is plucked
From love of man!-for in that thou, a god,
Didst brave the wrath of gods, and give away
Undue respect to mortals; for that crime
Thou art adjudged to guard this joyless rock,
Erect, unslumbering, bending not the knee,
And many a cry
and unavailing moan
To utter on the air! For Zeus is stern,
And new-made kings are cruel.

Strength.

Be it so.

Why loiter in vain pity? Why not hate

A god the gods hate?-one too who betrayed
Thy glory unto men?

Hephaestus.

An awful thing

Grant it be;

Is kinship joined to friendship.

Strength.

Is disobedience to the Father's word

A possible thing? Dost quail not more for that? Hephaestus. Thou, at least, art a stern one! ever bold!

Strength. Why, if I wept, it were no remedy! And do not thou spend labor on the air

To bootless uses.

Hephaestus.

Cursed handicraft!

I curse and hate thee, O my craft!

Strength.

Thy craft, most plainly innocent of all

These pending ills?

Hephaestus.

Why hate

I would some other hand

All work hath its pain,

Were here to work it!

Strength.

Except to rule the gods. There is none free

Make haste, and bind the fetters over HIM,

Lest Zeus behold thee lagging.

Wedge him in deeper,—leave no inch to stir!

He's terrible for finding a way out

Where others could not.