Second Fury: Immortal Titan!

THIRD FURY:Champion of Heaven's slaves!

PROMETHEUS:He whom some dreadful voice invokes is here,Prometheus, the chained Titan. Horrible forms,What and who are ye? Never yet there camePhantasms so foul through monster-teeming HellFrom the all-miscreative brain of Jove;Whilst I behold such execrable shapes,Methinks I grow like what I contemplate,And laugh and stare in loathsome sympathy.

FIRST FURY:We are the ministers of pain, and fear,And disappointment, and mistrust, and hate,And clinging crime; and as lean dogs pursueThrough wood and lake some struck and sobbing fawn,We track all things that weep, and bleed, and live,When the great King betrays them to our will.

PROMETHEUS:Oh! many fearful natures in one name,I know ye; and these lakes and echoes knowThe darkness and the clangour of your wings.But why more hideous than your loathed selvesGather ye up in legions from the deep?

SECOND FURY:We knew not that: Sisters, rejoice, rejoice!

PROMETHEUS:Can aught exult in its deformity?

SECOND FURY:The beauty of delight makes lovers glad,Gazing on one another: so are we.As from the rose which the pale priestess kneelsTo gather for her festal crown of flowersThe aereal crimson falls, flushing her cheek,So from our victim's destined agonyThe shade which is our form invests us round,Else we are shapeless as our mother Night.

PROMETHEUS:I laugh your power, and his who sent you here,To lowest scorn. Pour forth the cup of pain.

FIRST FURY:Thou thinkest we will rend thee bone from bone,And nerve from nerve, working like fire within?

PROMETHEUS:Pain is my element, as hate is thine;Ye rend me now; I care not.

SECOND FURY:Dost imagineWe will but laugh into thy lidless eyes?

PROMETHEUS:I weigh not what ye do, but what ye suffer,Being evil. Cruel was the power which calledYou, or aught else so wretched, into light.

THIRD FURY:Thou think'st we will live through thee, one by one,Like animal life, and though we can obscure notThe soul which burns within, that we will dwellBeside it, like a vain loud multitudeVexing the self-content of wisest men:That we will be dread thought beneath thy brain,And foul desire round thine astonished heart,And blood within thy labyrinthine veinsCrawling like agony?

PROMETHEUS:Why, ye are thus now;Yet am I king over myself, and ruleThe torturing and conflicting throngs within,As Jove rules you when Hell grows mutinous.

From the ends of the earth, from the ends of the earth,Where the night has its grave and the morning its birth,Come, come, come!Oh, ye who shake hills with the scream of your mirth,When cities sink howling in ruin; and yeWho with wingless footsteps trample the sea,And close upon Shipwreck and Famine's track,Sit chattering with joy on the foodless wreck;Come, come, come!Leave the bed, low, cold, and red,Strewed beneath a nation dead;Leave the hatred, as in ashesFire is left for future burning:It will burst in bloodier flashesWhen ye stir it, soon returning:Leave the self-contempt implantedIn young spirits, sense-enchanted,Misery's yet unkindled fuel:Leave Hell's secrets half unchantedTo the maniac dreamer; cruelMore than ye can be with hateIs he with fear.Come, come, come!We are steaming up from Hell's wide gateAnd we burthen the blast of the atmosphere,But vainly we toil till ye come here.

IONE:Sister, I hear the thunder of new wings.

PANTHEA:These solid mountains quiver with the soundEven as the tremulous air: their shadows makeThe space within my plumes more black than night.

FIRST FURY:Your call was as a winged car,Driven on whirlwinds fast and far;It rapped us from red gulfs of war.

SECOND FURY:From wide cities, famine-wasted;

THIRD FURY:Groans half heard, and blood untasted;

FOURTH FURY:Kingly conclaves stern and cold,Where blood with gold is bought and sold;

FIFTH FURY:From the furnace, white and hot,In which--

A FURY:Speak not: whisper not:I know all that ye would tell,But to speak might break the spellWhich must bend the Invincible,The stern of thought;He yet defies the deepest power of Hell.

FURY:Tear the veil!

It is torn.

CHORUS:The pale stars of the mornShine on a misery, dire to be borne.Dost thou faint, mighty Titan? We laugh thee to scorn.Dost thou boast the clear knowledge thou waken'dst for man?Then was kindled within him a thirst which outranThose perishing waters; a thirst of fierce fever,Hope, love, doubt, desire, which consume him for ever.One came forth of gentle worthSmiling on the sanguine earth;His words outlived him, like swift poisonWithering up truth, peace, and pity.Look! where round the wide horizonMany a million-peopled cityVomits smoke in the bright air.Mark that outcry of despair!'Tis his mild and gentle ghostWailing for the faith he kindled:Look again, the flames almostTo a glow-worm's lamp have dwindled:The survivors round the embersGather in dread.Joy, joy, joy!Past ages crowd on thee, but each one remembers,And the future is dark, and the present is spreadLike a pillow of thorns for thy slumberless head.

Drops of bloody agony flowFrom his white and quivering brow.Grant a little respite now:See a disenchanted nationSprings like day from desolation;To Truth its state is dedicate,And Freedom leads it forth, her mate;A legioned band of linked brothersWhom Love calls children--

'Tis another's:See how kindred murder kin:'Tis the vintage-time for death and sin:Blood, like new wine, bubbles within:Till Despair smothersThe struggling world, which slaves and tyrants win.

IONE:Hark, sister! what a low yet dreadful groanQuite unsuppressed is tearing up the heartOf the good Titan, as storms tear the deep,And beasts hear the sea moan in inland caves.Darest thou observe how the fiends torture him?

PANTHEA:Alas! I looked forth twice, but will no more.

IONE:What didst thou see?

PANTHEA:A woful sight: a youthWith patient looks nailed to a crucifix.

IONE:What next?

PANTHEA:The heaven around, the earth belowWas peopled with thick shapes of human death,All horrible, and wrought by human hands,And some appeared the work of human hearts,For men were slowly killed by frowns and smiles:And other sights too foul to speak and liveWere wandering by. Let us not tempt worse fearBy looking forth: those groans are grief enough.

FURY:Behold an emblem: those who do endureDeep wrongs for man, and scorn, and chains, but heapThousand-fold torment on themselves and him.

PROMETHEUS:Remit the anguish of that lighted stare;Close those wan lips; let that thorn-wounded browStream not with blood; it mingles with thy tears!Fix, fix those tortured orbs in peace and death,So thy sick throes shake not that crucifix,So those pale fingers play not with thy gore.O, horrible! Thy name I will not speak,It hath become a curse. I see, I seeThe wise, the mild, the lofty, and the just,Whom thy slaves hate for being like to thee,Some hunted by foul lies from their heart's home,An early-chosen, late-lamented home;As hooded ounces cling to the driven hind;Some linked to corpses in unwholesome cells:Some--Hear I not the multitude laugh loud?--Impaled in lingering fire: and mighty realmsFloat by my feet, like sea-uprooted isles,Whose sons are kneaded down in common bloodBy the red light of their own burning homes.

FURY:Blood thou canst see, and fire; and canst hear groans;Worse things unheard, unseen, remain behind.