No More Learning

_ I discern
Vain aspiration, unresultive work.

_Oceanus. _ Then suffer me to bear the brunt of this!
Since it is profitable that one who is wise
Should seem not wise at all.

_Prometheus. _ And such would seem
My very crime.

_Oceanus. _ 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.