Page:Prometheus Bound (Webster 1866).djvu/30



So! What this marvel? And thou comest then

To gaze upon my pain. Whence hadst thou nerve,

Leaving thy waterflood that bears thy name,

And thy rock-vaulted natural caves, to reach

This iron bearing land? Or art thou come

To observe my fate and wail my woes with me?

Behold a spectacle, the friend of Zeus

Who helped to stablish his control, behold

What sufferings must bow me to his will.

Prometheus, I behold, and long to teach thee

A better wisdom, though thyself be wily:

Know thine own self, and change into new ways,

Since the monarch among gods is new himself.

But, if thou still thus hurlest keen-edged words

And passionate, it may be Zeus, though throned

In the far heights, shall hear thee, so the wrath

Thou bearest now may come to seem to thee

Mere child's-play hardship. Nay, thou evil fated,

Dismiss thy rage and seek thy woes an end.

What I would say may seem to thee worn trite,

But such, Prometheus, truly is the meed