In memory of the tidings it has borne;
Beneath a dome fretted with graven flowers,
Poised on twelve columns of resplendent stone,
And open to the bright and liquid sky.
Yoked to it by an amphisbænic snake
The likeness of those winged steeds will mock
The flight from which they find repose. Alas,
Whither has wandered now my partial tongue
When all remains untold which ye would hear?
As I have said I floated to the earth:
It was, as it is still, the pain of bliss
To move, to breathe, to be; I wandering went
Among the haunts and dwellings of mankind,
And first was disappointed not to see
Such mighty change as I had felt within
Expressed in outward things; but soon I looked,

And behold! thrones were kingless, and men walked
One with the other even as spirits do,

None frowned, none trampled; hate, disdain, or fear,
Self-love or self-contempt, on human brows
No more inscribed, as o'er the gate of hell,
«All hope abandon ye who enter here;»
None fawned, none trembled, none with eager fear
Gazed on another's eye of cold command,

Until the subject of the tyrant's will

Became, worse fate, the abject of his own,

135

140

Which spurred him, like an outspent horse, to death. None wrought his lips in truth-entangling lines Which smiled the lie his tongue disdained to speak; None, with firm sneer, trod out in his own heart The sparks of love and hope till there remain

145

121 'light' 1820; flight' 1839, F. u. B. 133 frowned] B.; 'fawn'd' 1820, 'fawned' 1839, F. 137 fawned] B.; 'frown'd' 1820, 'frowned' 1839, F. 145 remain] B.; 'remained' die Ausgaben.

Those bitter ashes, a soul self-consumed,
And the wretch creeps a vampire among men,
Infecting all with his own hideous ill;

None talked that common, false, cold, hollow talk
Which makes the heart deny the yes it breathes,

Yet question that unmeant hypocrisy

With such a self-mistrust as has no name.

And women, too, frank, beautiful, and kind

As the free heaven which rains fresh light and dew
On the wide earth, past; gentle radiant forms,
From custom's evil taint exempt and pure;

Speaking the wisdom once they could not think,
Looking emotions once they feared to feel,
And changed to all which once they dared not be,
Yet being now, make earth like heaven; nor pride,
Nor jealousy, nor envy, nor ill shame,

The bitterest of those drops of treasured gall,
Spoilt the sweet taste of the nepenthe, love,

150

155

160

165

Thrones, altars, judgment-seats, and prisons; wherein,
And beside which, by wretched men were borne
Sceptres, tiaras, swords, and chains, and tomes
Of reasoned wrong, glozed on by ignorance,
Were like those monstrous and barbaric shapes,
The ghosts of a no more remembered fame,
Which, from their unworn obelisk, look forth
In triumph o'er the palaces and tombs.

170

Of those who were their conquerors, mouldering round These imaged to the pride of kings and priests,

A dark yet mighty faith, a power as wide

As is the world it wasted, and are now

179

147 creeps] B.; 'crept die Ausgaben. - 160 make] B.; 'made'

172 conquerors, mouldering round.' R. - 173

"These' B.; "Those' 1820, 1839, F.

But an astonishment; even so the tools
And emblems of its last captivity,

Amid the dwellings of the peopled earth,
Stand, not o'erthrown, but unregarded now.

And those foul shapes, abhorred by god and man, 180
Which, under many a name and many a form
Strange, savage, ghastly, dark and execrable,
Were Jupiter, the tyrant of the world;

190

And which the nations, panic-stricken, served
With blood, and hearts broken by long hope, and love 185
Dragged to his altars soiled and garlandless,
And slain amid men's unreclaiming tears,
Flattering the thing they feared, which fear was hate,
Frown, mouldering fast, oer their abandoned shrines:
The painted veil, by those who were, called life,
Which mimicked, as with colours idly spread,
All men believed or hoped, is torn aside;
The loathsome mask has fallen, the man remains
Sceptreless, free, uncircumscribed: -but man.
Equal, unclassed, tribeless, and nationless,
Exempt from awe, worship, degree, the king
Over himself; just, gentle, wise: but man:
Passionless? no-yet free from guilt or pain,
Which were, for his will made or suffered them,
Nor yet exempt, though ruling them like slaves,
From chance, and death, and mutability,
The clogs of that which else might oversoar
The loftiest star of unascended heaven,
Pinnacled dim in the intense inane.

END OF THE THIRD ACT.

195

200

187 amid] B.; among' 1820, 1839, F. 1839, F. 193 fallen. The man remains, -' R.

R.

,

192 or] 'and' 1820,

194 'but man:'

,

198 Passionless? no: - R. u. B., letzteres ohne das Kolon.

ACT IV.

SCENE, A PART OF THE FOREST NEAR THE CAVE OF PROMETHEUS. PANTHEA AND IONE ARE SLEEPING: THEY AWAKEN GRADUALLY DURING THE FIRST SONG.

VOICE of unseen Spirits.

The pale stars are gone!

For the sun, their swift shepherd,
To their folds them compelling,
In the depths of the dawn,
Hastes, in meteor-eclipsing array, and they flee
Beyond his blue dwelling,

As fawns flee the leopard.
But where are ye?

A TRAIN OF DARK FORMS AND SHADOWS PASSES BY CONFUSEDLY,

SINGING.

Here, oh, here:

We bear the bier

Of the Father of many a cancelled year!

Spectres we

Of dead Hours be,

We bear Time to his tomb in eternity.

Strew, oh, strew

Hair, not yew!

Wet the dusty pall with tears, not dew!
Be the faded flowers

Of Death's bare bowers

Spread on the corpse of the King of Hours!

Haste, oh, haste!

As shades are chased,

Vor 9 Bühnenweisung: singing.

13 dead] B.; 'the dead' 1820, 1839, F.

Panthea wakens B.

Trembling, by day, from heaven's blue waste.
We melt away,

Like dissolving spray,

From the children of a diviner day,
With the lullaby

Of winds that die

On the bosom of their own harmony!

IONE.

What dark forms were they?

PANTHEA.

The past Hours weak and grey,
With the spoil which their toil
Raked together

From the conquest but One could foil.

IONE.

Have they past?

PANTHEA.

They have past;

They outspeeded the blast,

While 'tis said, they are fled:

IONE.

Whither, oh, whither?

PANTHEA.

To the dark, to the past, to the dead.

VOICE of unseen Spirits.
Bright clouds float in heaven,
Dew-stars gleam on earth,
Waves assemble on ocean,

They are gathered and driven

Nach 29 Bühnenweisung: they vanish B.