For ages hath been empty of all joy,
Except to brood upon its silent hope,
As o'er its hope of day the sky doth now.
All night have I heard voices: deeper yet
The deep low breathing of the silence grew,
While all about, muffled in awe, there stood
Shadows, or forms, or both, clear-felt at heart,
But, when I turned to front them, far along
Only a shudder through the midnight ran,
And the dense stillness walled me closer round.
But still I heard them wander up and down
That solitude, and flappings of dusk wings
Did mingle with them, whether of those hags
Let slip upon me once from Hades deep,
Or of yet direr torments, if such be,

I could but guess; and then toward me came
A shape as of a woman: very pale

It was, and calm; its cold eyes did not move,
And mine moved not, but only stared on them.
Their fixed awe went through my brain like ice;
A skeleton hand seemed clutching at my heart,
And a sharp chill, as if a dank night fog

Suddenly closed me in, was all I felt :

And then, methought, I heard a freezing sigh,
A long, deep, shivering sigh, as from blue lips
Stiffening in death, close to mine ear. I thought
Some doom was close upon me, and I looked
And saw the red moon through the heavy mist,
Just setting, and it seemed as it were falling,
Or reeling to its fall, so dim and dead

And palsy-struck it looked. Then all sounds merged

Into the rising surges of the pines,

Which, leagues below me, clothing the gaunt loins
Of ancient Caucasus with hairy strength,

Sent up a murmur in the morning wind,
Sad as the wail that from the populous earth
All day and night to high Olympus soars,
Fit incense to thy wicked throne, O Jove!

Thy hated name is tossed once more in scorn From off my lips, for I will tell thy doom. And are these tears? Nay, do not triumph, Jove! They are wrung from me but by the agonies Of prophecy, like those sparse drops which fall

From clouds in travail of the lightning, when
The great wave of the storm, high-curled and black

Rolls steadily onward to its thunderous break.
Why art thou made a god of, thou poor type

Of anger, and revenge, and cunning force?
True Power was never born of brutish Strength,
Nor sweet Truth suckled at the shaggy dugs
Of that old she-wolf. Are thy thunderbolts,
That quell the darkness for a space, so strong
As the prevailing patience of meek Light,
Who, with the invincible tenderness of peace,
Wins it to be a portion of herself?

Why art thou made a god of, thou, who hast
The never-sleeping terror at thy heart,

That birthright of all tyrants, worse to bear
Than this thy ravening bird on which I smile?

Thou swear'st to free me, if I will unfold

What kind of doom it is whose omen flits

Across thy heart, as o'er a troop of doves

The fearful shadow of the kite. What need
To know that truth whose knowledge cannot save ?
Evil its errand hath, as well as Good;

When thine is finished, thou art known no more :

There is a higher purity than thou,

And higher purity is greater strength;

Thy nature is thy doom, at which thy heart
Trembles behind the thick wall of thy might.
Let man but hope, and thou art straightway chilled
With thought of that drear silence and deep night
Which, like a dream, shall swallow thee and thine:
Let man but will, and thou art god no more,

More capable of ruin than the gold

And ivory that image thee on earth.

He who hurled down the monstrous Titan-brood

Blinded with lightnings, with rough thunders stunned,

Is weaker than a simple human thought.

My slender voice can shake thee, as the breeze,

That seems but apt to stir a maiden's hair,

Sways huge Oceanus from pole to pole :

For I am still Prometheus, and foreknow

In

my

wise heart the end and doom of all.

Yes, I am still Prometheus, wiser grown By years of solitude, - that holds apart

The past and future, giving the soul room

To search into itself,- and long commune

With this eternal silence;

more a god,

In my long-suffering and strength to meet
With equal front the direst shafts of fate,
Than thou in thy faint-hearted despotism,
Girt with thy baby-toys of force and wrath.
Yes, I am that Prometheus who brought down
The light to man, which thou, in selfish fear,

Had'st to thyself usurped, his by sole right,

For Man hath right to all save Tyranny,

And which shall free him yet from thy frail throne. Tyrants are but the spawn of Ignorance,

Begotten by the slaves they trample on,

Who, could they win a glimmer of the light,
And see that Tyranny is always weakness,

Or Fear with its own bosom ill at ease,

Would laugh away in scorn the sand-wove chain Which their own blindness feigned for adamant. Wrong ever builds on quicksands, but the Right To the firm centre lays its moveless base.

The tyrant trembles, if the air but stirs