No More Learning

The good want power, but to weep barren tears. _625
The powerful goodness want: worse need for them.
The wise want love; and those who love want wisdom;
And all best things are thus confused to ill.
Many are strong and rich, and would be just,
But live among their suffering fellow-men _630
As if none felt: they know not what they do.

NOTE:
_619 ravin B, edition 1839; ruin 1820.

PROMETHEUS:
Thy words are like a cloud of winged snakes;
And yet I pity those they torture not.

FURY:
Thou pitiest them? I speak no more!
[VANISHES. ]

PROMETHEUS:
Ah woe!
Ah woe! Alas! pain, pain ever, for ever! _635
I close my tearless eyes, but see more clear
Thy works within my woe-illumed mind,
Thou subtle tyrant! Peace is in the grave.
The grave hides all things beautiful and good:
I am a God and cannot find it there, _640
Nor would I seek it: for, though dread revenge,
This is defeat, fierce king, not victory.
The sights with which thou torturest gird my soul
With new endurance, till the hour arrives
When they shall be no types of things which are. _645

PANTHEA:
Alas! what sawest thou more?

NOTE:
_646 thou more? B; thou? 1820.

PROMETHEUS:
There are two woes:
To speak, and to behold; thou spare me one.
Names are there, Nature's sacred watchwords, they
Were borne aloft in bright emblazonry;
The nations thronged around, and cried aloud, _650
As with one voice, Truth, liberty, and love!
Suddenly fierce confusion fell from heaven
Among them: there was strife, deceit, and fear:
Tyrants rushed in, and did divide the spoil.
This was the shadow of the truth I saw. _655

THE EARTH:
I felt thy torture, son; with such mixed joy
As pain and virtue give. To cheer thy state
I bid ascend those subtle and fair spirits,
Whose homes are the dim caves of human thought,
And who inhabit, as birds wing the wind, _660
Its world-surrounding aether: they behold
Beyond that twilight realm, as in a glass,
The future: may they speak comfort to thee!

PANTHEA:
Look, sister, where a troop of spirits gather,
Like flocks of clouds in spring's delightful weather, _665
Thronging in the blue air!

IONE:
And see! more come,
Like fountain-vapours when the winds are dumb,
That climb up the ravine in scattered lines.