Page:Prometheus Bound (Bevan 1902).djvu/80

 Neither of spring, the flowery time, nor summer,

The time of gathering. Foot and hand they plied

Without discernment, till the day I show'd them

The rising of the stars, and how to spell

The vanishing thereof, hard lore. Moreover

Number, the chiefest artifice of all

And subtlest, I devised for them, and joinings

Of letters, whereby the remembrance lives

Of all things, and the craft of lovely words.

And my hand first yoked with a yoke great beasts,

That, thong-bound or bestridden, they might do

Vile service, and the seed of men to these

Transfer their travail's worst. To wheelèd frames

I fasten'd horses, patient of the rein,

The glory of affluence that flowers in pride.

And none save I it was contrived those hulls

With wings of linen, wherein sea-farers

Go to and fro in the great field of the waves.

All these devices I devised for men,

But for myself am beggar'd of conceit,

To escape the pain that now is come upon me.