Page:Prometheus Unbound - Shelley.djvu/156

152 This is the day which down the void abysm At the Earth-born's spell yawns for Heaven's despotism, And Conquest is dragged captive through the deep; Love, from its awful throne of patient power In the wise heart, from the last giddy hour Of dread endurance, from the slippery, steep, And narrow verge of crag-like agony, springs And folds over the world its healing wings.

Gentleness, Virtue, Wisdom, and Endurance-- These are the seals of that most firm assurance Which bars the pit over Destruction's strength; And if, with infirm hand, Eternity, Mother of many acts and hours, should free The serpent that would clasp her with his length, These are the spells by which to reassume An empire o'er the disentangled doom.

To suffer woes which Hope thinks infinite; To forgive wrongs darker than death or night; To defy Power, which seems omnipotent;