Page:Prometheus Bound, and other poems.djvu/24

And war rose up between their starry brows,—
Some choosing to cast Chronos from his throne,
That Zeus might king it there; and some in haste
With opposite oaths that they would have no Zeus
To rule the gods for ever,—I, who brought
The counsel I thought meetest, could not move
The Titans, children of the Heaven and Earth,—
Because, disdaining in their rugged souls
My subtle machinations, they assumed
It was an easy thing for force to take
The mastery of fate. My mother, then,
Who is called not only Themis, but Earth too,
(Her single beauty joys in many names,)
Did teach me, with reiterant prophecy,
What future should be,—and how conquering gods
Should not prevail by strength and violence,
But by guile only. When I told them so,
They would not deign to contemplate the truth
On all sides round;—and thus, I deemed it best
To lead my mother upwards, willingly,
And set my Themis face to face with Zeus,
As willing to receive her! Tartarus,
With its abysmal cloister of the Dark,
Because I gave that counsel, covers up
The antique Chronos and his siding hosts;
And, by that counsel helped, the king of gods
Hath recompensed me by these bitter pangs—
For kingship wears a cancer at the heart,—
To have no faith in friends. And then, ye ask,
What crime it is for which he tortures me—
It shall be clear before you. When at first
He filled his father's throne, he made direct
And various gifts of glory to the gods,
And dealt the empire out. Alone, of men,