No More Learning

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, _465
Gazing on one another: so are we.
As from the rose which the pale priestess kneels
To gather for her festal crown of flowers
The aereal crimson falls, flushing her cheek,
So from our victim's destined agony _470
The 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, _475
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 imagine
We will but laugh into thy lidless eyes?

PROMETHEUS:
I weigh not what ye do, but what ye suffer, _480
Being evil. Cruel was the power which called
You, 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 not
The soul which burns within, that we will dwell _485
Beside it, like a vain loud multitude
Vexing 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 veins _490
Crawling like agony?

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

CHORUS OF FURIES:
From the ends of the earth, from the ends of the earth, _495
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 ye
Who with wingless footsteps trample the sea, _500
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; _505
Leave the hatred, as in ashes
Fire is left for future burning:
It will burst in bloodier flashes
When ye stir it, soon returning:
Leave the self-contempt implanted _510
In young spirits, sense-enchanted,
Misery's yet unkindled fuel:
Leave Hell's secrets half unchanted
To the maniac dreamer; cruel
More than ye can be with hate _515
Is he with fear.
Come, come, come!
We are steaming up from Hell's wide gate
And we burthen the blast of the atmosphere,
But vainly we toil till ye come here. _520

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

PANTHEA:
These solid mountains quiver with the sound
Even as the tremulous air: their shadows make
The space within my plumes more black than night.

FIRST FURY:
Your call was as a winged car, _525
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, _530
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 spell _535
Which must bend the Invincible,
The stern of thought;
He yet defies the deepest power of Hell.

FURY:
Tear the veil!

ANOTHER FURY:
It is torn.

CHORUS:
The pale stars of the morn
Shine on a misery, dire to be borne. _540
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 outran
Those perishing waters; a thirst of fierce fever,
Hope, love, doubt, desire, which consume him for ever. _545
One came forth of gentle worth
Smiling on the sanguine earth;
His words outlived him, like swift poison
Withering up truth, peace, and pity.
Look!