The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Part 30

The having spoken of myself with unaffected freedom will need little apology with the candid; and let the uncandid consider that they injure me less than their own hearts and minds by misrepresentation.

Whatever talents a person may possess to amuse and instruct others, be they ever so inconsiderable, he is yet bound to exert them: if his attempt be ineffectual, let the punishment of an unaccomplished purpose have been sufficient; let none trouble themselves to heap the dust of oblivion upon his efforts; the pile they raise will betray his grave which might otherwise have been unknown.

DRAMATIS PERSONAE.

PROMETHEUS.

DEMOGORGON.

JUPITER.

THE EARTH.

OCEAN.

APOLLO.

MERCURY.

OCEANIDES: ASIA, PANTHEA, IONE.

HERCULES.

THE PHANTASM OF JUPITER.

THE SPIRIT OF THE EARTH.

THE SPIRIT OF THE MOON.

SPIRITS OF THE HOURS.

SPIRITS. ECHOES. FAUNS. FURIES.

ACT 1.

SCENE: A RAVINE OF ICY ROCKS IN THE INDIAN CAUCASUS.

PROMETHEUS IS DISCOVERED BOUND TO THE PRECIPICE.

PANTEA AND IONE ARE SEATED AT HIS FEET.

TIME, NIGHT.

DURING, THE SCENE MORNING SLOWLY BREAKS.

PROMETHEUS: Monarch of G.o.ds and DAEmons, 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 mult.i.tudinous with thy slaves, whom thou _5 Requitest for knee-wors.h.i.+p, 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 G.o.d!

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!

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

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 h.o.a.r-frost of the morn, _45 Or starry, dim, and slow, the other climbs The leaden-coloured 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 wide Heaven!

How will thy soul, cloven to its depth with terror, _55 Gape like a h.e.l.l 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.

NOTE: _54 thro' wide B; thro' the wide 1820.

FIRST VOICE (FROM THE MOUNTAINS): Thrice three hundred thousand years O'er the Earthquake's couch we stood: _75 Oft, as men convulsed with fears, We trembled in our mult.i.tude.

SECOND VOICE (FROM THE SPRINGS): Thunderbolts had parched our water, We had been stained with bitter blood, And had run mute, 'mid shrieks of slaughter, _80 Thro' a city and a solitude.

THIRD VOICE (FROM THE AIR): I had clothed, since Earth uprose, Its wastes in colours not their own, And oft had my serene repose Been cloven by many a rending groan. _85

FOURTH VOICE (FROM THE WHIRLWINDS): We had soared beneath these mountains Unresting ages; nor had thunder, Nor yon volcano's flaming fountains, Nor any power above or under Ever made us mute with wonder. _90

FIRST VOICE: But never bowed our snowy crest As at the voice of thine unrest.

SECOND VOICE: Never such a sound before To the Indian waves we bore.

A pilot asleep on the howling sea _95 Leaped up from the deck in agony, And heard, and cried, 'Ah, woe is me!'

And died as mad as the wild waves be.

THIRD VOICE: By such dread words from Earth to Heaven My still realm was never riven: _100 When its wound was closed, there stood Darkness o'er the day like blood.

FOURTH VOICE: And we shrank back: for dreams of ruin To frozen caves our flight pursuing Made us keep silence--thus--and thus-- _105 Though silence is a h.e.l.l to us.

THE EARTH: The tongueless caverns of the craggy hills Cried, 'Misery!' then; the hollow Heaven replied, 'Misery!' And the Ocean's purple waves, Climbing the land, howled to the las.h.i.+ng winds, _110 And the pale nations heard it, 'Misery!'

NOTE: _106 as h.e.l.l 1839, B; a h.e.l.l 1820.

PROMETHEUS: I hear a sound of voices: not the voice Which I gave forth. Mother, thy sons and thou Scorn him, without whose all-enduring will Beneath the fierce omnipotence of Jove, _115 Both they and thou had vanished, like thin mist Unrolled on the morning wind. Know ye not me, The t.i.tan? He who made his agony The barrier to your else all-conquering foe?

Oh, rock-embosomed lawns, and snow-fed streams, _120 Now seen athwart frore vapours, deep below, Through whose o'ershadowing woods I wandered once With Asia, drinking life from her loved eyes; Why scorns the spirit which informs ye, now To commune with me? me alone, who checked, _125 As one who checks a fiend-drawn charioteer, The falsehood and the force of him who reigns Supreme, and with the groans of pining slaves Fills your dim glens and liquid wildernesses: Why answer ye not, still? Brethren!

THE EARTH: They dare not. _130

PROMETHEUS: Who dares? for I would hear that curse again.

Ha, what an awful whisper rises up!

'Tis scarce like sound: it tingles through the frame As lightning tingles, hovering ere it strike.

Speak, Spirit! from thine inorganic voice _135 I only know that thou art moving near And love. How cursed I him?

THE EARTH: How canst thou hear Who knowest not the language of the dead?

PROMETHEUS: Thou art a living spirit; speak as they.

THE EARTH: I dare not speak like life, lest Heaven's fell King _140 Should hear, and link me to some wheel of pain More torturing than the one whereon I roll.

Subtle thou art and good; and though the G.o.ds Hear not this voice, yet thou art more than G.o.d, Being wise and kind: earnestly hearken now. _145

PROMETHEUS: Obscurely through my brain, like shadows dim, Sweep awful thoughts, rapid and thick. I feel Faint, like one mingled in entwining love; Yet 'tis not pleasure.

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 fibre of the loftiest tree Whose thin leaves trembled in the frozen air, _155 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 Their prostrate brows from the polluting dust, _160 And our almighty Tyrant with fierce dread Grew pale, until his thunder chained thee here.

Then, see those million worlds which burn and roll Around us: their inhabitants beheld My sphered light wane in wide Heaven; the sea _165 Was lifted by strange tempest, and new fire From earthquake-rifted mountains of bright snow Shook its portentous hair beneath Heaven's frown; Lightning and Inundation vexed the plains; Blue thistles bloomed in cities; foodless toads _170 Within voluptuous chambers panting crawled: When Plague had fallen on man, and beast, and worm, And Famine; and black blight on herb and tree; And in the corn, and vines, and meadow-gra.s.s, Teemed ineradicable poisonous weeds _175 Draining their growth, for my wan breast was dry With grief; and the thin air, my breath, was stained With the contagion of a mother's hate Breathed on her child's destroyer; ay, I heard 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, _185 But dare not speak them.