Page:Prometheus Unbound - Shelley.djvu/29

SCENE I. Misery!' And the Ocean's purple waves, Climbing the land, howled to the lashing winds, And the pale nations heard it, 'Misery!'

I hear a sound of voices; not the voice Which I gave forth. Mother, thy sons and thou Scorn him, without whose all-enduring will Beneath the fierce omnipotence of Jove, Both they and thou had vanished, like thin mist Unrolled on the morning wind. Know ye not me, The Titan? He who made his agony The barrier to your else all-conquering foe? O rock-embosomed lawns and snow-fed streams, Now seen athwart frore vapors, deep below, Thro' whose o'ershadowing woods I wandered once With Asia, drinking life from her loved eyes; Why scorns the spirit, which informs ye, now To commune with me? me alone who checked, As one who checks a fiend-drawn charioteer, The falsehood and the force of him who reigns Supreme, and with the groans of pining slaves Fills your dim glens and liquid wildernesses: Why answer ye not, still? Brethren!

They dare not.

Who dares? for I would hear that curse again. Ha, what an awful whisper rises up!