Page:Prometheus Bound, and other poems.djvu/29

Rh

All things with me, except their penalty!

But now cease! leave these thoughts! It cannot be

That thou shouldst move. may not be moved!

And thou, beware lest, this way, thou meet woe.

Oceanus. Ever thou wert more wise, for others' use,

Than for thine own: the event, and not the word,

Attests it to me. Yet where now I rush,

Thy wisdom hath no power to drag me back;

Because I glory—glory in this aim—

To win for thee deliverance from thy pangs,

As a free gift from Zeus.

Prometheus. Why there, again,

I give thee gratulation and applause!

Thou lackest no good-will. But, as for deeds,

Do naught! 'twere all done vainly! helping naught,

Whatever thou wouldst do. Rather take rest,

And keep thyself from evil. If I grieve,

I do not therefore wish to multiply

The griefs of others. Verily, not so!

For still my brother's doom doth vex my soul,—

My brother Atlas, standing in the west,

Shouldering the column of the heaven and earth,

Mete burden for a giant! And I have seen,

And pitied as I saw, the earth-born one,

The habitant of old Cilician caves,

The great war-monster of the hundred heads,

(All taken and bowed beneath the violent Hand,)

Typhon the fierce, who did resist the gods,

And, hissing slaughter from his dreadful jaws,

Did flash out from his eyes a glory askance,

As if to storm the throne of Zeus! But so,

The sleepless arrow of Zeus flew straight to him,—