Page:Prometheus Bound, and other poems.djvu/15



E reach the utmost limit of the earth,

The Scythian track, the desert without man,—

And now, Hephæstus, thou must needs fulfill

The mandate of our father, and, with links

Indissoluble of adamantine chains,

Fasten against this beetling precipice,

This guilty god! Because he filched away

Thine own bright flower, the glory of plastic fire,

And gifted mortals with it,—such a sin,

It doth behoove he expiate to the gods,

And learn free service to the rule of Zeus,

And leave disused his trick of loving man.

Hephæstus. O Strength and Force,—for you, our Zeus's will

Presents a deed for doing.—No more!—but I,

I lack your daring, up this storm-rent chasm,

To fix with violent hands a kindred god,

Howbeit necessity compels me so