Page:Prometheus Bound, and other poems.djvu/20

14

The secret fount of fire, whose bubbles went

Over the ferule's brim, and manward sent

Art's mighty means and perfect rudiment,

That sin I expiate in this agony;

Hung here in fetters, 'neath the blanching sky!

Ah, ah me! what a sound,

What a fragrance sweeps up from a pinion unseen

Of a god, or a mortal, or nature between,—

Sweeping up to this rock where the earth has her bound,

To have sight of my pangs,—or some guerdon obtain—

Lo! a god in the anguish, a god in the chain!

The god, Zeus hateth sore,

And his gods hate again,

As many as tread on his glorified floor,—

Because I loved mortals too much evermore!

Alas me! what a murmur and motion I hear,

As of birds flying near!

And the air undersings

The soft stroke of their wings—

And all life that approaches, I wait for in fear.

Fear nothing! our troop

Floats lovingly up,

With a quick-oaring stroke

Of wings steered to the rock;

Having softened the soul of our father below!

For the gales of swift-bearing have sent me a sound,—

And the clank of the iron, the malleted blow,

Smote down the profound

Of my caverns of old,

And struck the red light in a blush from my brow,—