Prologue to Hellas

It is the day when all the sons of GodWait in the roofless senate-house, whose floorIs Chaos, and the immovable abyssFrozen by His steadfast word to hyaline

The shadow of God, and delegateOf that before whose breath the universeIs as a print of dew.Hierarchs and kingsWho from your thrones pinnacled on the pastSway the reluctant present, ye who sitPavilioned on the radiance or the gloomOf mortal thought, which like an exhalationSteaming from earth, conceals the ... of heavenWhich gave it birth. ... assemble hereBefore your Father's throne; the swift decreeYet hovers, and the fiery incarnationIs yet withheld, clothed in which it shallannulThe fairest of those wandering isles that gemThe sapphire space of interstellar air,That green and azure sphere, that earth enwrappedLess in the beauty of its tender lightThan in an atmosphere of living spiritWhich interpenetrating all the ...it rolls from realm to realmAnd age to age, and in its ebb and flowImpels the generationsTo their appointed place,Whilst the high ArbiterBeholds the strife, and at the appointed timeSends His decrees veiled in eternal...

Within the circuit of this pendent orbThere lies an antique region, on which fellThe dews of thought in the world's golden dawnEarliest and most benign, and from it sprungTemples and cities and immortal formsAnd harmonies of wisdom and of song,And thoughts, and deeds worthy of thoughts so fair.And when the sun of its dominion failed,And when the winter of its glory came,The winds that stripped it bare blew on and sweptThat dew into the utmost wildernessesIn wandering clouds of sunny rain that thawedThe unmaternal bosom of the North.Haste, sons of God, ... for ye beheld,Reluctant, or consenting, or astonished,The stern decrees go forth, which heaped on GreeceRuin and degradation and despair.A fourth now waits: assemble, sons of God,To speed or to prevent or to suspend,If, as ye dream, such power be not withheld,The unaccomplished destiny.

CHORUS:The curtain of the UniverseIs rent and shattered,The splendour-winged worlds disperseLike wild doves scattered.

Space is roofless and bare,And in the midst a cloudy shrine,Dark amid thrones of light.In the blue glow of hyalineGolden worlds revolve and shine.In ... flightFrom every point of the Infinite,Like a thousand dawns on a single nightThe splendours rise and spread;And through thunder and darkness dreadLight and music are radiated,And in their pavilioned chariots ledBy living wings high overheadThe giant Powers move,Gloomy or bright as the thrones they fill.

A chaos of light and motionUpon that glassy ocean.

The senate of the Gods is met,Each in his rank and station set;There is silence in the spaces--Lo! Satan, Christ, and MahometStart from their places!

CHRIST:Almighty Father!Low-kneeling at the feet of Destiny

There are two fountains in which spirits weepWhen mortals err, Discord and Slavery named,And with their bitter dew two DestiniesFilled each their irrevocable urns; the thirdFiercest and mightiest, mingled both, and addedChaos and Death, and slow Oblivion's lymph,And hate and terror, and the poisoned rain

The Aurora of the nations. By this browWhose pores wept tears of blood, by these wide wounds,By this imperial crown of agony,By infamy and solitude and death,For this I underwent, and by the painOf pity for those who would ... for meThe unremembered joy of a revenge,For this I felt--by Plato's sacred light,Of which my spirit was a burning morrow--By Greece and all she cannot cease to be.Her quenchless words, sparks of immortal truth,Stars of all night--her harmonies and forms,Echoes and shadows of what Love adoresIn thee, I do compel thee, send forth Fate,Thy irrevocable child: let her descend,A seraph-winged VictoryIn tempest of the omnipotence of GodWhich sweeps through all things.

From hollow leagues, from Tyranny which armsAdverse miscreeds and emulous anarchiesTo stamp, as on a winged serpent's seed,Upon the name of Freedom; from the stormOf faction, which like earthquake shakes and sickensThe solid heart of enterprise; from allBy which the holiest dreams of highest spiritsAre stars beneath the dawn...She shall ariseVictorious as the world arose from Chaos!And as the Heavens and the Earth arrayedTheir presence in the beauty and the lightOf Thy first smile, O Father,--as they gatherThe spirit of Thy love which paves for themTheir path o'er the abyss, till every sphereShall be one living Spirit,--so shall Greece--

SATAN:Be as all things beneath the empyrean,Mine! Art thou eyeless like old Destiny,Thou mockery-king, crowned with a wreath of thorns?Whose sceptre is a reed, the broken reedWhich pierces thee! whose throne a chair of scorn;For seest thou not beneath this crystal floorThe innumerable worlds of golden lightWhich are my empire, and the least of themwhich thou wouldst redeem from me?Know'st thou not them my portion?Or wouldst rekindle the ... strifeWhich our great Father then did arbitrateWhich he assigned to his competing sonsEach his apportioned realm?Thou Destiny,Thou who art mailed in the omnipotenceOf Him who tends thee forth, whate'er thy task,Speed, spare not to accomplish, and be mineThy trophies, whether Greece again becomeThe fountain in the desert whence the earthShall drink of freedom, which shall give it strengthTo suffer, or a gulf of hollow deathTo swallow all delight, all life, all hope.Go, thou Vicegerent of my will, no lessThan of the Father's; but lest thou shouldst faint,The winged hounds, Famine and Pestilence,Shall wait on thee, the hundred-forked snakeInsatiate Superstition still shall...The earth behind thy steps, and War shall hoverAbove, and Fraud shall gape below, and ChangeShall flit before thee on her dragon wings,Convulsing and consuming, and I addThree vials of the tears which daemons weepWhen virtuous spirits through the gate of DeathPass triumphing over the thorns of life,Sceptres and crowns, mitres and swords and snares,Trampling in scorn, like Him and Socrates.The first is Anarchy; when Power and Pleasure,Glory and science and security,On Freedom hang like fruit on the green tree,Then pour it forth, and men shall gather ashes.The second Tyranny--

CHRIST:Obdurate spirit!Thou seest but the Past in the To-come.Pride is thy error and thy punishment.Boast not thine empire, dream not that thy worldsAre more than furnace-sparks or rainbow-dropsBefore the Power that wields and kindles them.True greatness asks not space, true excellenceLives in the Spirit of all things that live,Which lends it to the worlds thou callest thine.

MAHOMET:...Haste thou and fill the waning crescentWith beams as keen as those which pierced the shadowOf Christian night rolled back upon the West,When the orient moon of Islam rode in triumphFrom Tmolus to the Acroceraunian snow.

Wake, thou WordOf God, and from the throne of DestinyEven to the utmost limit of thy wayMay Triumph

Be thou a curse on them whose creedDivides and multiplies the most high God.