Page:Prometheus Bound, and other poems.djvu/57

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And with his white-winged snows, and mutterings deep

Of subterranean thunders, mix all things;

Confound them in disorder! None of this

Shall bend my sturdy will, and make me speak

The name of his dethroner who shall come.

Hermes. Can this avail thee? Look to it!

Prometheus. Long ago

It was looked forward to,—precounselled of.

Hermes. Vain god, take righteous courage!—dare for once

To apprehend and front thine agonies

With a just prudence!

Prometheus. Vainly dost thou chafe

My soul with exhortation, as the sea

Goes beating on the rock. Oh! think no more

That I, fear-struck by Zeus to a woman's mind,

Will supplicate him, loathed as he is

With womanly upliftings of my hands,

To break these chains! Far from me be the thoughts!

Hermes. I have indeed, methinks, said much in vain,—

For still thy heart, beneath my showers of prayers,

Lies dry and hard!—nay, leaps like a young horse

Who bites against the new bit in his teeth,

And tugs and struggles against the new-tried rein,—

Still fiercest in the weakest thing of all,

Which sophism is,—for absolute will alone,

When left to its motions in perverted minds,

Is worse than null, for strength! Behold and see,

Unless my words persuade thee, what a blast

And whirlwind of inevitable woe

Must sweep persuasion through thee! For at first