Poems (Lowell, 1844, English edition)/Prometheus
MISCELLANEOUS POEMS.
PROMETHEUS.
One after one the stars have risen and set,Sparkling upon the hoarfrost on my chain:The Bear, that prowled all night about the foldOf the North-star, hath shrunk into his den,Scared by the blithesome footsteps of the Dawn,Whose blushing smile floods all the Orient;And now bright Lucifer grows less and less,Into the heaven's blue quiet deep-withdrawn.Sunless and starles all, the desert skyArches above me, empty as this heart. 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 yetThe deep low breathing of the silence grew,While all about, muffled in awe, there stoodShadows, or forms, or both, clear-felt at heart,But, when I turned to front them, far alongOnly a shudder through the midnight ran,And the dense stillness walled me closer round.But still I heard them wander up and downThat solitude, and flappings of dusk wingsDid mingle with them, whether of those hagsLet slip upon me once from Hades deep,Or of yet direr torments, if such be,I could but guess; and then toward me cameA shape as of a woman: very paleIt 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 lipsStiffening in death, close to mine ear. I thoughtSome doom was close upon me, and I lookedAnd 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 deadAnd palsy-struck it looked. Then all sounds mergedInto the rising surges of the pines,Which, leagues below me, clothing the gaunt loinsOf ancient Caucasus with hairy strength,Sent up a murmur in the morning wind,Sad as the wail that from the populous earthAll day and night to high Olympus soars,Fit incense to thy wicked throne, O Jove!
Thy hated name is tossed once more in scornFrom 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 agoniesOf prophecy, like those sparse drops which fall From clouds in travail of the lightning, whenThe great wave of the storm, high-curled and blackRolls steadily onward to its thunderous break.Why art thou made a god of, thou poor typeOf anger, and revenge, and cunning force?True Power was never born of brutish Strength,Nor sweet Truth suckled at the shaggy dugsOf that old she-wolf. Are thy thunderbolts,That quell the darkness for a space, so strongAs 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 hastThe never-sleeping terror at thy heart,That birthright of all tyrants, worse to bearThan this thy ravening bird on which I smile?Thou swear'st to free me, if I will unfoldWhat kind of doom it is whose omen flitsAcross thy heart, as o'er a troop of dovesThe fearful shadow of the kite. What needTo 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 heartTrembles behind the thick wall of thy might.Let man but hope, and thou art straightway chilledWith thought of that drear silence and deep nightWhich, like a dream, shall swallow thee and thine:Let man but will, and thou art god no more,More capable of ruin than the goldAnd ivory that image thee on earth.He who hurled down the monstrous Titan-broodBlinded 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 foreknowIn my wise heart the end and doom of all.
Yes, I am still Prometheus, wiser grownBy years of solitude,—that holds apart The past and future, giving the soul roomTo search into itself,—and long communeWith this eternal silence;—more a god,In my long-suffering and strength to meetWith 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 downThe light to man, which thou, in selfish fear,Hadst 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 chainWhich their own blindness feigned for adamant.Wrong ever builds on quicksands, but the RightTo the firm centre lays its moveless base.The tyrant trembles, if the air but stirs The innocent ringlets of a child's free hairAnd crouches, when the thought of some great spirit,With world-wide murmur, like a rising gale,Over men's hearts, as over standing corn,Rushes, and bends them to its own strong will.So shall some thought of mine yet circle earth,And puff away thy crumbling altars, Jove!
And, wouldst thou know of my supreme revenge,Poor tyrant, even now dethroned in heart,Realmless in soul, as tyrants ever are,Listen! and tell me if this bitter peak,This never-glutted vulture, and these chainsShrink not before it; for it shall befitA sorrow-taught, unconquered Titan-heart.Men, when their death is on them, seem to standOn a precipitous crag that overhangsThe abyss of doom, and in that depth to see,As in a glass, the features dim and vastOf things to come, the shadows, as it seems,Of what have been. Death ever fronts the wise;Not fearfully, but with clear promises Of larger life, on whose broad vans upborne,Their out-look widens, and they see beyondThe horizon of the Present and the Past,Even to the very source and end of things.Such am I now: immortal woe hath madeMy heart a seer, and my soul a judgeBetween the substance and the shadow of Truth.The sure supremeness of the Beautiful,By all the martyrdoms made doubly sureOf such as I am, this is my revenge,Which of my wrongs builds a triumphal arch,Through which I see a sceptre and a throne.The pipings of glad shepherds on the hills,Tending the flocks no more to bleed for thee,—The songs of maidens pressing with white feetThe vintage on thine altars poured no more,—The murmurous bliss of lovers, underneathDim grape-vine bowers, whose rosy bunches pressNot half so closely their warm cheeks, uncheckedBy thoughts of thy brute lust,—the hive-like humOf peaceful commonwealths, where sunburnt ToilReaps for itself the rich earth made its own By its own labour, lightened with glad hymnsTo an omnipotence which thy mad boltsWould cope with as a spark with the vast sea,—Even the spirit of free love and peace,Duty's sure recompense through life and death,—These are such harvests as all master-spiritsReap, haply not on earth, but reap no lessBecause the sheaves are bound by hands not theirs;These are the bloodless daggers wherewithalThey stab fallen tyrants, this their high revenge:For their best part of life on earth is when,Long after death, prisoned and pent no more,Their thoughts, their wild dreams even, have becomePart of the necessary air men breathe;When, like the moon, herself behind a cloud,They shed down light before us on life's sea,That cheers us to steer onward still in hope.Earth with her twining memories ivies o'erTheir holy sepulchres; the chainless sea,In tempest or wide calm, repeats their thoughts;The lightning and the thunder, all free things,Have legends of them for the ears of men. All other glories are as falling stars,But universal Nature watching theirs:Such strength is won by love of human kind.
Not that I feel that hunger after fame,Which souls of a half-greatness are beset with;But that the memory of noble deedsCries, shame upon the idle and the vile,And keeps the heart of Man for ever upTo the heroic level of old time.To be forgot at first is little painTo a heart conscious of such high intentAs must be deathless on the lips of men;But, having been a name, to sink and beA something which the world can do without,Which, having been or not, would never changeThe lightest pulse of fate,—this is indeedA cup of bitterness the worst to taste,And this thy heart shall empty to the dregs,Endless despair shall be thy CaucasusAnd memory thy vulture; thou wilt findOblivion far lonelier than this peak,— Behold thy destiny! Thou think'st it muchThat I should brave thee, miserable god!But I have braved a mightier than thou,Even the tempting of this soaring heart,Which might have made me, scarcely less than thou,A god among my brethren weak and blind,—Scarce less than thou, a pitiable thingTo be down-trodden into darkness soon.But now I am above thee, for thou artThe bungling workmanship of fear, the blockThat awes the swart Barbarian; but IAm what myself have made,—a nature wiseWith finding in itself the types of all,—With watching from the dim verge of the timeWhat things to be are visible in the gleamsThrown forward on them from the luminous past,—Wise with the history of its own frail heart,With reverence and sorrow, and with love,Broad as the world, for freedom and for man.
Thou and all strength shall crumble, except Love,By whom, and for whose glory, ye shall cease: And, when thou art but a dim moaning heardFrom out the pitiless glooms of Chaos, IShall be a power and a memory,A name to fright all tyrants with, a lightUnsetting as the pole-star, a great voiceHeard in the breathless pauses of the fightBy truth and freedom ever waged with wrong,Clear as a silver trumpet, to awakeHuge echoes that from age to age live onIn kindred spirits, giving them a senseOf boundless power from boundless suffering wrung:And many a glazing eye shall smile to seeThe memory of my triumph, (for to meetWrong with endurance, and to overcomeThe present with a heart that looks beyond,Are triumph), like a prophet eagle, perchUpon the sacred banner of the Right.Evil springs up, and flowers, and bears no seed,And feeds the green earth with its swift decay,Leaving it richer for the growth of truth;But Good, once put in action or in thought,Like a strong oak, doth from its boughs shed down The ripe germs of a forest. Thou, weak god,Shalt fade and be forgotten! but this soul,Fresh-living still in the serene abyss,In ever heaving shall partake, that growsFrom heart to heart among the sons of men,—As the ominous hum before the earthquake runsFar through the Ægean from roused isle to isle,—Foreboding wreck to palaces and shrines,And mighty rents in many a cavernous errorThat darkens the free light to man:—This heart,Unscarred by thy grim vulture, as the truth.Grows but more lovely 'neath the beaks and claws.Of Harpies blind that fain would soil it, shallIn all the throbbing exultations shareThat wait on freedom's triumphs, and in allThe glorious agonies of martyr-spirits.—Sharp lightning-throes to split the jagged cloudsThat veil the future, showing them the end,—Pain's thorny crown for constancy and truth,Girding the temples like a wreath of stars.This is a thought, that, like the fabled laurel,Makes my faith thunder-proof; and thy dread bolts Fall on me like the silent flakes of snowOn the hoar brows of aged Caucasus:But, O thought far more blissful, they can rendThis cloud of flesh, and make my soul a star!
Unleash thy crouching thunders now, O Jove!Free this high heart, which, a poor captive long,Doth knock to be let forth, this heart which still,In its invincible manhood, overtopsThy puny godship, as this mountain dothThe pines that moss its root. O, even now,While from my peak of suffering I look down,Beholding with a far-spread gush of hopeThe sunrise of that Beauty, in whose face,Shone all around with love, no man shall lookBut straightway like a god he is upliftUnto the throne long empty for his sake,And clearly oft foreshadowed in wide dreamsBy his free inward nature, which nor thou,Nor any anarch after thee, can bindFrom working its great doom,—now, now set freeThis essence, not to die, but to become Part of that awful Presence which doth hauntThe palaces of tyrants, to hunt off,With its grim eyes and fearful whisperingsAnd hideous sense of utter loneliness,All hope of safety, all desire of peace,All but the loathed forefeeling of blank death,—Part of that spirit which doth ever broodIn patient calm on the unpilfered nestOf man's deep heart, till mighty thoughts grow fledgedTo sail with darkening shadow o'er the world,Filling with dread such souls as dare not trustIn the unfailing energy of Good,Until they swoop, and their pale quarry makeOf some o'erbloated wrong,—that spirit whichScatters great hopes in the seed-field of man,Like acorns among grain, to grow and beA roof for freedom in all coming time!
But no, this cannot be; for ages yet,In solitude unbroken, shall I hearThe angry Caspian to the Euxine shout,And Euxine answer with a muffled roar, On either side storming the giant wallsOf Caucasus with leagues of climbing foam,(Less, from my height, than flakes of downy snow,)That draw back baffled but to hurl again,Snatched up in wrath and horrible turmoil,Mountain on mountain, as the Titans erst,My brethren, scaling the high seat of Jove,Heaved Pelion upon Ossa's shoulders broad,In vain emprise. The moon will come andWith her monotonous vicissitude;Once beautiful, when I was free to walkAmong my fellows, and to interchangeThe influence benign of loving eyes,But now by aged use grown wearisome;—False thought! most false! for how could I endureThese crawling centuries of lonely woeUnshamed by weak complaining, but for thee,Loneliest, save me, of all created things,Mild-eyed Astarte, my best comforter,With thy pale smile of sad benignity?
Year after year will pass away and seem To me, in mine eternal agony,But as the shadows of dumb summer-clouds,Which I have watched so often darkening o'erThe vast Sarmatian plain, league-wide at first,But, with still swiftness, lessening on and onTill cloud and shadow meet and mingle whereThe gray horizon fades into the sky,Far, far to northward. Yes, for ages yetMust I lie here upon my altar luge,A sacrifice for man. Sorrow will be,As it hath been, his portion; endless doom,While the immortal with the mortal linkedDreams of its wings and pines for what it dreams,With upward yearn unceasing. Better so:For wisdom is meek sorrow's patient child,And empire over self, and all the deepStrong charities that make men seem like gods;And love, that makes them be gods, from her breastsSucks in the milk that makes mankind one blood.Good never comes unmixed, or so it seems,Having two faces, as some imagesAre carved, of foolish gods; one face is ill; But one heart lies beneath, and that is good,As are all hearts, when we explore their depths.Therefore, great heart, bear up! thou art but typeOf what all lofty spirits endure, that fainWould win men back to strength and peace through love:Each hath his lonely peak, and on each heart Envy, or scorn, or hatred, tears lifelongWith vulture beak; yet the high soul is left;And faith, which is but hope grown wise; and loveAnd patience, which at last shall overcome.