Hermes.

Howbeit, thou hast not learnt

The wisdom yet, thou needest.

Prometheus.

If I had,

I should not talk thus with a slave like thee.

Hermes. Thou dost vouchsafe no answer, as I think,

To the great Sire's requirements.

Prometheus.

Verily

I owe him grateful service,—and should pay it.

Hermes. Why, thou dost mock me, Titan, as I stood A child before thy face.

Prometheus.

No child, forsooth,
But yet more foolish than a foolish child,
If thou expect that I should answer aught
Thy Zeus can ask. No torture from his hand,
Nor any machination in the world,

Shall force mine utterance, ere he loose, himself,
These cankerous fetters from me! For the rest,
Let him now hurl his blenching lightnings down,
And with his white-winged snows, and mutterings deep
Of subterranean thunders, mix all things;
Confound them in disorder ! None of this
Shall bend my sturdy will, and make me speak
The name of his dethroner who shall come.

Hermes. Can this avail thee? Look to it!
Prometheus.

It was looked forward to-precounselled of.

Long ago

Hermes. Vain god, take righteous courage !— dare for once To apprehend and front thine agonies

With a just prudence!

Prometheus.

Vainly dost thou chafe

My soul with exhortation, as the sea

Goes beating on the rock. Oh! think no more
That I, fear-struck by Zeus to a woman's mind,
Will supplicate him, loathed as he is,

With womanly upliftings of my hands,

To break these chains! Far from me be the thoughts!
Hermes. I have indeed, methinks, said much in vain,—

For still thy heart, beneath my showers of prayers,
Lies dry and hard !—nay, leaps like a young horse
Who bites against the new bit in his teeth,

And tugs and struggles against the new-tried rein,-
Still fiercest in the weakest thing of all,

Which sophism is,—for absolute will alone,
When left to its motions in perverted minds,
Is worse than null, for strength! Behold and see,
Unless my words persuade thee, what a blast
And whirlwind of inevitable woe

Must sweep persuasion through thee! For at first
The Father will split up this jut of rock

With the great thunder and the bolted flame,
And hide thy body where the hinge of stone

Shall catch it like an arm !—and when thou hast passed
A long black time within, thou shalt come out
To front the sun; and Zeus's winged hound,
The strong carnivorous eagle, shall wheel down
To meet thee,-self-called to a daily feast,—
And set his fierce beak in thee, and tear off
The long rags of thy flesh, and batten deep
Upon thy dusky liver! Do not look
For any end, moreover, to this curse,
Or ere some god appear, to bear thy pangs
On his own head vicarious, and descend
With unreluctant step the darks of hell,
And the deep glooms enringing Tartarus !—
Then ponder this!—the threat is not a growth
Of vain invention: it is spoken and meant!
For Zeus's mouth is impotent to lie,

And doth complete the utterance in the act—

So, look to it, thou !—take heed !—and nevermore

Forget good counsel, to indulge self-will!

Chorus. This Hermes suits his reasons to the times

At least I think so!—since he bids thee drop

Self-will for prudent counsel. Yield to him!

When the wise err, their wisdom proves their shame. Prometheus. Unto me the foreknower, this mandate of power,

He cries, to reveal it!

And scarce strange is my fate, if I suffer from hate,

At the hour that I feel it!

Let the locks of the lightning, all bristling and whitening,
Flash, coiling me round!

While the æther goes surging 'neath thunder and scourg

ing

Of wild winds unbound!

Let the blast of the firmament whirl from its place
The earth rooted below,--

And the brine of the ocean, in rapid emotion,
Be it driven in the face

Of the stars up in heaven, as they walk to and fro !
Let him hurl me anon, into Tartarus-on-
To the blackest degree,

With Necessity's vortices strangling me down!
But he cannot join death to a fate meant for me!

Hermes. Why, the words that he speaks and the thoughts that he thinks,

Are maniacal-sad!

And if Fate, who hath bound him, just loosens the links,-
Yet he's nigh to be mad.

Then depart ye who groan with him,
Leaving to moan with him-

Go in haste! lest the roar of the thunder, in nearing,
Should blast you to idiocy, living and hearing.

Chorus. Change thy speech for another, thy thought for a new,
If to move me and teach me, indeed be thy care!
For thy words swerve so far from the loyal and true,
That the thunder of Zeus seems more easy to bear.
How! couldst teach me to venture such vileness? Behold!
I choose, with this victim, this anguish foretold!
For I turn from the traitor in hate and disdain,—
And I know that the curse of the treason is worse
Than the pang of the chain.

Hermes. Then remember, O nymphs, what I utter before,Nor, when pierced by the arrows that Até will throw you, Cast the blame on your fate, and declare evermore

That Zeus thrust you on anguish he did not foreshow you. Nay, verily, nay! for ye perish anon

For your deed-by your choice!-by no blindness of doubt, No abruptness of doom!-but by madness alone,

In the great net of Até, whence none cometh out,
Ye are wound and undone !

Prometheus. Ay! in act, now-in word, now, no more!
Earth is rocking in space!

And the thunders crash up with a roar upon roar-
And red eddies of lightning flash fires in my face—
And the whirlwinds are whirling the dust round and round-
And the blasts of the winds universal, leap free,

And blow each upon each, with a passion of sound,

And æther goes mingling in storm with the sea!
Such a curse on my head, in a manifest dread,
From the hand of your Zeus has been hurtled along!
O my mother's fair glory! O Æther, enringing,
All eyes, with the sweet common light of thy bringing,
Dost thou see how I suffer this wrong?

A LAMENT FOR ADONIS.

FROM THE GREEK OF BION.

I.

I MOURN for Adonis-Adonis is dead!

Fair Adonis is dead, and the Loves are lamenting.
Sleep, Cypris, no more, on thy purple-strewed bed;
Arise, wretch stoled in black,-beat thy breast unrelenting,
And shriek to the worlds, "Fair Adonis is dead."

II.

I mourn for Adonis-the Loves are lamenting.

He lies on the hills, in his beauty and death,—
The white tusk of a boar has transpierced his white thigh;
And his Cypris grows mad at the thin gasping breath,
While the black blood drips down on the pale ivory:

And his eyeballs lie quenched with the weight of his brows.
The rose fades from his lips, and, upon them just parted,
The kiss dies which Cypris consents not to lose,

Though the kiss of the Dead cannot make her glad-hearted— He knows not who kisses him dead in the dews.

III.

I mourn for Adonis-the Loves are lamenting.
Deep, deep in the thigh is Adonis's wound;
But a deeper in Cypris's bosom presenting-

The youth lieth dead, while his dogs howl around,
And the nymphs weep aloud from the mists of the hill,—
And the poor Aphrodite, with tresses unbound,

All dishevelled, unsandalled, shrieks mournful and shrill

Through the dusk of the groves. The thorns, tearing her feet, Gather up the red flower of her blood, which is holy,

Each footstep she takes; and the valleys repeat
The sharp cry which she utters, and draw it out slowly
She calls on her spouse, her Assyrian; on him

Her own youth; while the dark blood spreads over his body—
The chest taking hue, from the gash in the limb,
And the bosom, once ivory, turning to ruddy.

IV.

Ah, ah, Cytherea! the Loves are lamenting :

She lost her fair spouse, and so lost her fair smile—
When he lived she was fair, by the whole world's consenting,
Whose fairness is dead with him! woe worth the while!

All the mountains above and the oaklands below
Murmur, ah, ah, Adonis! the streams overflow

Aphrodite's deep wail,-river-fountains in pity

Weep soft in the hills; and the flowers, as they blow,
Redden outward with sorrow; while all hear her go
With the song of her sadness, through mountain and city.

V.

Ah, ah, Cytherea ! Adonis is dead :

Fair Adonis is dead-Echo answers, Adonis ! Who weeps not for Cypris, when, bowing her head, She stares at the wound where it gapes and astonies? —When, ah, ah !-she saw how the blood ran away And empurpled the thigh; and, with wild hands flung out, Said with sobs, "Stay, Adonis! unhappy one, stay— Let me feel thee once more-let me ring thee about With the clasp of my arms, and press kiss into kiss! Wait a little, Adonis, and kiss me again,

For the last time, beloved; and but so much of this,

That the kiss may learn life from the warmth of the strain ! -Till thy breath shall exude from thy soul to my mouth; To my heart; and, the love-charm I once more receiving, May drink thy love in it, and keep, of a truth,

That one kiss in the place of Adonis the living. Thou fliest me, mournful one, fliest me far,

My Adonis; and seekest the Acheron portal,

To Hell's cruel King, goest down with a scar,

While I weep, and live on like a wretched immortal,