No More Learning

I gave all
He has; and in return he chains me here
Years, ages, night and day: whether the Sun
Split my parched skin, or in the moony night
The crystal-winged snow cling round my hair: _385
Whilst my beloved race is trampled down
By his thought-executing ministers.
Such is the tyrant's recompense: 'tis just:
He who is evil can receive no good;
And for a world bestowed, or a friend lost, _390
He can feel hate, fear, shame; not gratitude:
He but requites me for his own misdeed.
Kindness to such is keen reproach, which breaks
With bitter stings the light sleep of Revenge.
Submission, thou dost know I cannot try: _395
For what submission but that fatal word,
The death-seal of mankind's captivity,
Like the Sicilian's hair-suspended sword,
Which trembles o'er his crown, would he accept,
Or could I yield? Which yet I will not yield. _400
Let others flatter Crime, where it sits throned
In brief Omnipotence: secure are they:
For Justice, when triumphant, will weep down
Pity, not punishment, on her own wrongs,
Too much avenged by those who err. I wait, _405
Enduring thus, the retributive hour
Which since we spake is even nearer now.
But hark, the hell-hounds clamour: fear delay:
Behold! Heaven lowers under thy Father's frown.

MERCURY:
Oh, that we might be spared; I to inflict _410
And thou to suffer! Once more answer me:
Thou knowest not the period of Jove's power?

PROMETHEUS:
I know but this, that it must come.

MERCURY:
Alas!
Thou canst not count thy years to come of pain?

PROMETHEUS:
They last while Jove must reign: nor more, nor less _415
Do I desire or fear.
MERCURY:
Yet pause, and plunge
Into Eternity, where recorded time,
Even all that we imagine, age on age,
Seems but a point, and the reluctant mind
Flags wearily in its unending flight, _420
Till it sink, dizzy, blind, lost, shelterless;
Perchance it has not numbered the slow years
Which thou must spend in torture, unreprieved?

PROMETHEUS:
Perchance no thought can count them, yet they pass.

MERCURY:
If thou might'st dwell among the Gods the while
Lapped in voluptuous joy? _425

PROMETHEUS:
I would not quit
This bleak ravine, these unrepentant pains.

MERCURY:
Alas! I wonder at, yet pity thee.

PROMETHEUS:
Pity the self-despising slaves of Heaven,
Not me, within whose mind sits peace serene. _430
As light in the sun, throned: how vain is talk!
Call up the fiends.

IONE:
O, sister, look! White fire
Has cloven to the roots yon huge snow-loaded cedar;
How fearfully God's thunder howls behind!

MERCURY:
I must obey his words and thine: alas! _435
Most heavily remorse hangs at my heart!

PANTHEA:
See where the child of Heaven, with winged feet,
Runs down the slanted sunlight of the dawn.

IONE:
Dear sister, close thy plumes over thine eyes
Lest thou behold and die: they come: they come _440
Blackening the birth of day with countless wings,
And hollow underneath, like death.

FIRST FURY:
Prometheus!