The tablet of unutterable thoughts Was traced, and then it faded as it came, The day, the hour, the sunshine, and the shade, And thrust themselves between him and the light: VII. A change came o'er the spirit of my dream.. And forms impalpable and unperceived Of others' sight familiar were to hers. And this the world calls phrensy; but the wise Have a far deeper madness, and the glance Of melancholy is a fearful gift; What is it but the telescope of truth? Which strips the distance of its phantasies, VIII. A change came o'er the spirit of my dream. The Wanderer was alone as heretofore, The beings which surrounded him were gone, Through that which had been death to many men, And made him friends of mountains: with the stars And the quick Spirit of the Universe He held his dialogues; and they did teach To him the magic of their mysteries; To him the book of Night was open'd wide, A marvel and a secret-Be it so. IX. My dream was past; it had no further change. It was of a strange order, that the doom Of these two creatures should be thus traced out Almost like a reality—the one To end in madness-both in misery. PROMETHEUS. I. TITAN! to whose immortal eyes The sufferings of mortality, Seen in their sad reality, Were not as things that gods despise; What was thy pity's recompense? A silent suffering, and intense; The rock, the vulture, and the chain, All that the proud can feel of pain, The agony they do not show, The suffocating sense of woe, Which speaks but in its loneliness, And then is jealous lest the sky Should have a listener, nor will sigh Until its voice is echoless. II. Titan! to thee the strife was given And the inexorable Heaven, And the deaf tyranny of Fate, The ruling principle of Hate, Which for its pleasure doth create The things it may annihilate, Refused thee even the boon to die: The wretched gift eternity Was thine-and thou hast borne it well. On him the torments of thy rack; That in his hand the lightnings trembled. |