In all which was served up to him, until Through that which had been death to many men, He held his dialogues; and they did teach IX. My dream was past; it had no further change. Of these two creatures should be thus traced out To end in madness-both in misery. PROMETHEUS. I. TITAN! to whose immortal eyes Were not as things that gods despise; A silent suffering, and intense; The rock, the vulture, and the chain, Which speaks but in its loneliness, Until its voice is echoless. II. Titan! to thee the strife was given Between the suffering and the will, Which torture where they cannot kill; And the inexorable Heaven, And the deaf tyranny of Fate, The ruling principle of Hate, Which for its pleasure doth create Was thine and thou hast borne it well. And evil dread so ill dissembled That in his hand the lightnings trembled. III. Thy Godlike crime was to be kind, The sum of human wretchedness, Still in thy patient energy, In the endurance, and repulse Of thine impenetrable Spirit, Which Earth and Heaven could not convulse, A mighty lesson we inherit: Thou art a symbol and a sign To Mortals of their fate and force; Like thee, Man is in part divine, A troubled stream from a pure source; His wretchedness, and his resistance, And a firm will, and a deep sense, Its own concenter'd recompense, Triumphant where it dares defy, And making Death a Victory. VOL. V. |