The Poetical Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning Volume I Part 17

_Strength._ We reach the utmost limit of the earth, The Scythian track, the desert without man.

And now, Hephaestus, thou must needs fulfil The mandate of our Father, and with links Indissoluble of adamantine chains Fasten against this beetling precipice This guilty G.o.d. Because he filched away Thine own bright flower, the glory of plastic fire, And gifted mortals with it,--such a sin It doth behove he expiate to the G.o.ds, Learning to accept the empery of Zeus And leave off his old trick of loving man.

_Hephaestus._ O Strength and Force, for you, our Zeus's will Presents a deed for doing, no more!--but _I_, I lack your daring, up this storm-rent chasm To fix with violent hands a kindred G.o.d, Howbeit necessity compels me so That I must dare it, and our Zeus commands With a most inevitable word. Ho, thou!

High-thoughted son of Themis who is sage!

Thee loth, I loth must rivet fast in chains Against this rocky height unclomb by man, Where never human voice nor face shall find Out thee who lov'st them, and thy beauty's flower, Scorched in the sun's clear heat, shall fade away.

Night shall come up with garniture of stars To comfort thee with shadow, and the sun Disperse with retrickt beams the morning-frosts, But through all changes sense of present woe Shall vex thee sore, because with none of them There comes a hand to free. Such fruit is plucked From love of man! and in that thou, a G.o.d, Didst brave the wrath of G.o.ds and give away Undue respect to mortals, for that crime Thou art adjudged to guard this joyless rock, Erect, unslumbering, bending not the knee, And many a cry and unavailing moan To utter on the air. For Zeus is stern And new-made kings are cruel.

_Strength._ Be it so.

Why loiter in vain pity? Why not hate A G.o.d the G.o.ds hate? one too who betrayed Thy glory unto men?

_Hephaestus._ An awful thing Is kins.h.i.+p joined to friends.h.i.+p.

_Strength._ Grant it be; Is disobedience to the Father's word A possible thing? Dost quail not more for that?

_Hephaestus._ Thou, at least, art a stern one: ever bold.

_Strength._ Why, if I wept, it were no remedy; And do not _thou_ spend labour on the air To bootless uses.

_Hephaestus._ Cursed handicraft!

I curse and hate thee, O my craft!

_Strength._ Why hate Thy craft most plainly innocent of all These pending ills?

_Hephaestus._ I would some other hand Were here to work it!

_Strength._ All work hath its pain, Except to rule the G.o.ds. There is none free Except King Zeus.

_Hephaestus._ I know it very well: I argue not against it.

_Strength._ Why not, then, Make haste and lock the fetters over HIM Lest Zeus behold thee lagging?

_Hephaestus._ Here be chains.

Zeus may behold these.

_Strength._ Seize him: strike amain: Strike with the hammer on each side his hands-- Rivet him to the rock.

_Hephaestus._ The work is done, And thoroughly done.

_Strength._ Still faster grapple him; Wedge him in deeper: leave no inch to stir.

He's terrible for finding a way out From the irremediable.

_Hephaestus._ Here's an arm, at least, Grappled past freeing.

_Strength._ Now then, buckle me The other securely. Let this wise one learn He's duller than our Zeus.

_Hephaestus._ Oh, none but he Accuse me justly.

_Strength._ Now, straight through the chest, Take him and bite him with the clenching tooth Of the adamantine wedge, and rivet him.

_Hephaestus._ Alas, Prometheus, what thou sufferest here I sorrow over.

_Strength._ Dost thou flinch again And breathe groans for the enemies of Zeus?

Beware lest thine own pity find thee out.

_Hephaestus._ Thou dost behold a spectacle that turns The sight o' the eyes to pity.

_Strength._ I behold A sinner suffer his sin's penalty.

But lash the thongs about his sides.

_Hephaestus._ So much, I must do. Urge no farther than I must.

_Strength._ Ay, but I _will_ urge!--and, with shout on shout, Will hound thee at this quarry. Get thee down And ring amain the iron round his legs.

_Hephaestus._ That work was not long doing.

_Strength._ Heavily now Let fall the strokes upon the perforant gyves: For He who rates the work has a heavy hand.

_Hephaestus._ Thy speech is savage as thy shape.

_Strength._ Be thou Gentle and tender! but revile not me For the firm will and the untruckling hate.

_Hephaestus._ Let us go. He is netted round with chains.

_Strength._ Here, now, taunt on! and having spoiled the G.o.ds Of honours, crown withal thy mortal men Who live a whole day out. Why how could _they_ Draw off from thee one single of thy griefs?

Methinks the Daemons gave thee a wrong name, "Prometheus," which means Providence,--because Thou dost thyself need providence to see Thy roll and ruin from the top of doom.

_Prometheus (alone)._ O holy aether, and swift-winged Winds, And River-wells, and laughter innumerous Of yon sea-waves! Earth, mother of us all, And all-viewing cyclic Sun, I cry on you,-- Behold me, a G.o.d, what I endure from G.o.ds!

Behold, with throe on throe, How, wasted by this woe, I wrestle down the myriad years of time!

Behold, how fast around me, The new King of the happy ones sublime Has flung the chain he forged, has shamed and bound me!

Woe, woe! to-day's woe and the coming morrow's I cover with one groan. And where is found me A limit to these sorrows?

And yet what word do I say? I have foreknown Clearly all things that should be; nothing done Comes sudden to my soul; and I must bear What is ordained with patience, being aware Necessity doth front the universe With an invincible gesture. Yet this curse Which strikes me now, I find it hard to brave In silence or in speech. Because I gave Honour to mortals, I have yoked my soul To this compelling fate. Because I stole The secret fount of fire, whose bubbles went Over the ferule's brim, and manward sent Art's mighty means and perfect rudiment, That sin I expiate in this agony, Hung here in fetters, 'neath the blanching sky.

Ah, ah me! what a sound, What a fragrance sweeps up from a pinion unseen Of a G.o.d, or a mortal, or nature between, Sweeping up to this rock where the earth has her bound, To have sight of my pangs or some guerdon obtain.

Lo, a G.o.d in the anguish, a G.o.d in the chain!

The G.o.d, Zeus hateth sore And his G.o.ds hate again, As many as tread on his glorified floor, Because I loved mortals too much evermore.

Alas me! what a murmur and motion I hear, As of birds flying near!

And the air undersings The light stroke of their wings-- And all life that approaches I wait for in fear.

_Chorus of Sea Nymphs, 1st Strophe._ Fear nothing! our troop Floats lovingly up With a quick-oaring stroke Of wings steered to the rock, Having softened the soul of our father below.

For the gales of swift-bearing have sent me a sound, And the clank of the iron, the malleted blow, Smote down the profound Of my caverns of old, And struck the red light in a blush from my brow,-- Till I sprang up unsandaled, in haste to behold, And rushed forth on my chariot of wings manifold.

_Prometheus._ Alas me!--alas me!

Ye offspring of Tethys who bore at her breast Many children, and eke of Ocea.n.u.s, he Coiling still around earth with perpetual unrest!

Behold me and see How transfixed with the fang Of a fetter I hang On the high-jutting rocks of this fissure and keep An uncoveted watch o'er the world and the deep.

_Chorus, 1st Antistrophe._ I behold thee, Prometheus; yet now, yet now, A terrible cloud whose rain is tears Sweeps over mine eyes that witness how Thy body appears Hung awaste on the rocks by infrangible chains: For new is the Hand, new the rudder that steers The s.h.i.+p of Olympus through surge and wind-- And of old things pa.s.sed, no track is behind.

_Prometheus._ Under earth, under Hades Where the home of the shade is, All into the deep, deep Tartarus, I would he had hurled me adown.

I would he had plunged me, fastened thus In the knotted chain with the savage clang, All into the dark where there should be none, Neither G.o.d nor another, to laugh and see.