18
CHORUS.
Strophe I.
Fear us not: thou dost perceive 140 (128)
Only a friendly crowd,
Who on eager wings have raced to this peak;
And many a prayer had we to speak
Ere we won our father's leave.
But the helping winds sent us swiftly to thee, 145 (133)
For down below to our caves in the sea
Came the clanging of steel so loud
That it startled our sober coyness away,
And without delay 149 (137)
Unsandalled we sped here our winged cars' array.
Prometheus.
Alas! Alas!
Daughters of Tethys mother of many lives,
Children of him who encoils all the earth
With the unsleeping flow of his waters,
Father Oceanus, look ye upon me. 155 (143)
See me with what thralls imprisoned
Mid the bleak ridges of the chasm-reft peak
Where my terrible watch must be kept.
