my four-footed bird sweeps smooth and wide
The flats of air with balanced pinions, glad
To bend his knee at home in the ocean-stall.
The flats of air with balanced pinions, glad
To bend his knee at home in the ocean-stall.
Elizabeth Browning
_ In truth thine argument
Sends me back home.
_Prometheus. _ Lest any lament for me
Should cast thee down to hate.
_Oceanus. _ The hate of him
Who sits a new king on the absolute throne?
_Prometheus. _ Beware of him, lest thine heart grieve by him.
_Oceanus. _ Thy doom, Prometheus, be my teacher!
_Prometheus. _ Go.
Depart--beware--and keep the mind thou hast.
_Oceanus. _ Thy words drive after, as I rush before.
Lo!
my four-footed bird sweeps smooth and wide
The flats of air with balanced pinions, glad
To bend his knee at home in the ocean-stall.
[_OCEANUS departs. _
_Chorus, 1st Strophe. _
I moan thy fate, I moan for thee,
Prometheus! From my eyes too tender,
Drop after drop incessantly
The tears of my heart's pity render
My cheeks wet from their fountains free;
Because that Zeus, the stern and cold,
Whose law is taken from his breast,
Uplifts his sceptre manifest
Over the gods of old.
_1st Antistrophe. _
All the land is moaning
With a murmured plaint to-day;
All the mortal nations
Having habitations
In the holy Asia
Are a dirge entoning
For thine honour and thy brothers',
Once majestic beyond others
In the old belief,--
Now are groaning in the groaning
Of thy deep-voiced grief.
_2nd Strophe. _
Mourn the maids inhabitant
Of the Colchian land,
Who with white, calm bosoms stand
In the battle's roar:
Mourn the Scythian tribes that haunt
The verge of earth, Maeotis' shore.
_2nd Antistrophe. _
Yea! Arabia's battle-crown,
And dwellers in the beetling town
Mount Caucasus sublimely nears,--
An iron squadron, thundering down
With the sharp-prowed spears.
But one other before, have I seen to remain
By invincible pain
Bound and vanquished,--one Titan! 'twas Atlas, who bears
In a curse from the gods, by that strength of his own
Which he evermore wears,
The weight of the heaven on his shoulder alone,
While he sighs up the stars;
And the tides of the ocean wail bursting their bars,--
Murmurs still the profound,
And black Hades roars up through the chasm of the ground,
And the fountains of pure-running rivers moan low
In a pathos of woe.
_Prometheus. _ Beseech you, think not I am silent thus
Through pride or scorn.
Sends me back home.
_Prometheus. _ Lest any lament for me
Should cast thee down to hate.
_Oceanus. _ The hate of him
Who sits a new king on the absolute throne?
_Prometheus. _ Beware of him, lest thine heart grieve by him.
_Oceanus. _ Thy doom, Prometheus, be my teacher!
_Prometheus. _ Go.
Depart--beware--and keep the mind thou hast.
_Oceanus. _ Thy words drive after, as I rush before.
Lo!
my four-footed bird sweeps smooth and wide
The flats of air with balanced pinions, glad
To bend his knee at home in the ocean-stall.
[_OCEANUS departs. _
_Chorus, 1st Strophe. _
I moan thy fate, I moan for thee,
Prometheus! From my eyes too tender,
Drop after drop incessantly
The tears of my heart's pity render
My cheeks wet from their fountains free;
Because that Zeus, the stern and cold,
Whose law is taken from his breast,
Uplifts his sceptre manifest
Over the gods of old.
_1st Antistrophe. _
All the land is moaning
With a murmured plaint to-day;
All the mortal nations
Having habitations
In the holy Asia
Are a dirge entoning
For thine honour and thy brothers',
Once majestic beyond others
In the old belief,--
Now are groaning in the groaning
Of thy deep-voiced grief.
_2nd Strophe. _
Mourn the maids inhabitant
Of the Colchian land,
Who with white, calm bosoms stand
In the battle's roar:
Mourn the Scythian tribes that haunt
The verge of earth, Maeotis' shore.
_2nd Antistrophe. _
Yea! Arabia's battle-crown,
And dwellers in the beetling town
Mount Caucasus sublimely nears,--
An iron squadron, thundering down
With the sharp-prowed spears.
But one other before, have I seen to remain
By invincible pain
Bound and vanquished,--one Titan! 'twas Atlas, who bears
In a curse from the gods, by that strength of his own
Which he evermore wears,
The weight of the heaven on his shoulder alone,
While he sighs up the stars;
And the tides of the ocean wail bursting their bars,--
Murmurs still the profound,
And black Hades roars up through the chasm of the ground,
And the fountains of pure-running rivers moan low
In a pathos of woe.
_Prometheus. _ Beseech you, think not I am silent thus
Through pride or scorn.
