Page:Writings of Henry David Thoreau (1906) v5.djvu/384

342 Of birds near? for the air rustles

With the soft rippling of wings.

Everything to me is fearful which creeps this way.

Ch. Fear nothing; for friendly this band

Of wings with swift contention

Drew to this hill, hardly

Persuading the paternal mind.

The swift-carrying breezes sent me;

For the echo of beaten steel pierced the recesses

Of the caves, and struck out from me reserved modesty;

And I rushed unsandaled in a winged chariot.

Pr. Alas! alas! alas! alas!

Offspring of the fruitful Tethys,

And of him rolling around all

The earth with sleepless stream children,

Of Father Ocean; behold, look on me;

By what bonds embraced

On this cliff's topmost rocks

I shall maintain unenvied watch.

Ch. I see, Prometheus; but to my eyes a fearful

Mist has come surcharged

With tears, looking upon thy body

Shrunk to the rocks

By these mischiefs of adamantine bonds;

Indeed, new helmsmen rule Olympus;

And with new laws Zeus strengthens himself, annulling the old,

And the before great now makes unknown.