A ence in the mind of man or in nature, but because the whole produced by their combination has some intelligible and beautiful analogy with those sources of emotion and thought, and with the contemporary condition of them one great poet is a masterpiece of nature which another not only ought to study but must study. He might as wisely and as easily determine that his mind should no longer be the mirror of all that is lovely in the visible universe, as exclude from his contemplation the beautiful which exists in the writings of a great contemporary. The pretence of doing it would be a presumption in any but the greatest; the effect, even in him, would be strained, unnatural, and ineffectual. poet is the combined product of such internal powers as modify the nature of others; and of such external influences as excite and sustain these powers; he is not one, but both. Every man's mind is, in this respect, modified by all the objects of nature and art; by every word and every suggestion which he ever admitted to act upon his consciousness; it is the mirror upon which all forms are reflected, and in which they compose one form. Poets, not otherwise than philosophers, painters, sculptors, and musicians, are, in one sense, the creators, and, in another, the creations, of their age. From this subjection the loftiest do not escape. There is a similarity between Homer and Hesiod, between Eschylus and Euripides, between Virgil and Horace, between Dante and Petrarch, between Shakespeare and Fletcher, between Dryden and Pope; each has a generic resemblance under which their specific distinctions are arranged. If this similarity be the result of imitation, I am willing to confess that I have imitated. Let this opportunity be conceded to me of acknowledging that I have, what a Scotch philosopher characteristically terms, 'a passion for reforming the world what passion incited him to write and publish his book, he omits to explain. For my part I had rather be damned with Plato and Lord Bacon, than go to Heaven with Paley and Malthus. But it is a mistake to suppose that I dedicate my poetical compositions solely to the direct enforcement of reform, or that I consider them in any degree as containing a reasoned system on the theory of human life. Didactic poetry is my abhorrence; nothing can be equally well expressed in prose that is not tedious and supererogatory in verse. My purpose has hitherto been simply to familiarise the highly refined imagination of the more select classes of poetical readers with beautiful idealisms of moral excellence; aware that until the mind can love, and admire, and trust, and hope, and endure, reasoned principles of moral conduct are seeds cast upon the highway of life which the unconscious passenger tramples into dust, although they would bear the harvest of his happiness. Should I live to accomplish what I purpose, that is, produce a systematical history of what appear to me to be the genuine elements of human society, let not the advocates of injustice and superstition flatter themselves that I should take Eschylus rather than Plato as my model. The having spoken of myself with unaffected freedom will need little apology with the candid; SCENE. A Ravine of Icy Rocks in the Indian Caucasus. PROMETHEUS is discovered bound to the Precipice. PANTHEA and IONE are seated at his feet. Time, night. During the Scene, morning slowly breaks. 5 10 Prometheus. Monarch of Gods and Dæmons, and all Spirits No change, no pause, no hope! Yet I endure. 15 20 25 I ask yon Heaven, the all-beholding Sun, The crawling glaciers pierce me with the spears My heart; and shapeless sights come wandering by, Mocking me and the Earthquake-fiends are charged 30 35 40 45 50 Will hunt thee undefended through wide Heaven! How will thy soul, cloven to its depth with terror, 55 Not exultation, for I hate no more, As then ere misery made me wise. The curse Once breathed on thee I would recall./Ye Mountains, 60 Through which the Sun walks burning without beams! 54 thro' wide B; thro' the wide 1820. 66 70 First Voice (from the Mountains). Thrice three hundred thousand years Second Voice (from the Springs). Thunderbolts had parched our water, We had been stained with bitter blood, 75 And had run mute, 'mid shrieks of slaughter, 80 Third Voice (from the Air). I had clothed, since Earth uprose, Been cloven by many a rending groan. Fourth Voice (from the Whirlwinds). We had soared beneath these mountains First Voice. But never bowed our snowy crest Second Voice. Never such a sound before Leaped up from the deck in agony, 85 90 A pilot asleep on the howling sea 95 And heard, and cried, 'Ah, woe is me!' And died as mad as the wild waves be. Third Voice. By such dread words from Earth to Heaven 100 When its wound was closed, there stood Darkness o'er the day like blood. Fourth Voice. And we shrank back: for dreams of ruin Made us keep silence-thus-and thus- 105 The Earth. The tongueless Caverns of the craggy hills Cried, Misery!' then; the hollow Heaven replied, 'Misery!' And the Ocean's purple waves, 106 as hell 1839, B; a hell 1820 Climbing the land, howled to the lashing winds, And the pale nations heard it, 'Misery!" Prometheus. I heard a sound of voices: not the voice 110 Which I gave forth. Mother, thy sons and thou Both they and thou had vanished, like thin mist The barrier to your else all-conquering foe? Oh, rock-embosomed lawns, and snow-fed streams, 115 120 Through whose o'ershadowing woods I wandered once The Earth. 125 130 They dare not. Prometheus. Who dares? for I would hear that curse again. Ha, what an awful whisper rises up! 'Tis scarce like sound: it tingles through the frame As lightning tingles, hovering ere it strike. I only know that thou art moving near The Earth. How canst thou hear Who knowest not the language of the dead? Prometheus. Thou art a living spirit; speak as they. 135 The Earth. I dare not speak like life, lest Heaven's fell King Should hear, and link me to some wheel of pain 141 More torturing than the one whereon I roll." Subtle thou art and good, and though the Gods Hear not this voice, yet thou art more than God, Being wise and kind: earnestly hearken now. 145 Prometheus. Obscurely through my brain, like shadows dim, Sweep awful thoughts, rapid and thick. I feel Faint, like one mingled in entwining love; Yet 'tis not pleasure. The Earth. No, thou canst not hear: Thou art immortal, and this tongue is known Only to those who die. Prometheus. O, melancholy Voice? The Earth. And what art thou, I am the Earth, Thy mother; she within whose stony veins, To the last fibre of the loftiest tree 137 And love 1820; And lovest cj. Swinburne. 150 |