Page:Prometheus Bound, and other poems.djvu/60

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For I turn from the traitor in hate and disdain,—

And I know that the curse of the treason is worse

Than the pang of the chain.

Hermes. Then remember, O nymphs, what I utter before,—

Nor, when pierced by the arrows that Até will throw you,

Cast the blame on your fate, and declare evermore

That Zeus thrust you on anguish he did not foreshow you.

Nay, verily, nay! for ye perish anon

For your deed—by your choice!—by no blindness of doubt,

No abruptness of doom!—but by madness alone,

In the great net of Até, whence none cometh out,

Ye are wound and undone!

Prometheus. Ay! in act, now—in word, now, no more!

Earth is rocking in space!

And the thunders crash up with a roar upon roar—

And red eddies of lightning flash fires in my face—

And the whirlwinds are whirling the dust round and round—

And the blasts of the winds universal, leap free,

And blow each upon each, with a passion of sound,—

And æther goes mingling in storm with the sea!

Such a curse on my head, in a manifest dread,

From the hand of your Zeus has been hurtled along!

O my mother's fair glory! O, Æther, enringing,

All eyes, with the sweet common light of thy bringing.

Dost thou see how I suffer this wrong?