Dost thou faint, mighty Titan? laugh thee to scorn.

We

Dost thou boast the clear knowledge thou waken'dst for man?

Then was kindled within him a thirst which outran

Those perishing waters; a thirst of fierce fever,

Hope, love, doubt, desire, which consume him for ever.

One came forth of gentle worth
Smiling on the sanguine earth;
His words outlived him, like swift
poison,

Withering up truth, peace, and pity.
Look! where round the wide horizon
Many a million-peopled city
Vomits smoke in the bright air.
Mark that outcry of despair!
'Tis his mild and gentle ghost
Wailing for the faith he kindled :
Look again, the flames almost

To a glow-worm's lamp have

dwindled:

Of the good Titan, as storms tear the deep,

And beasts hear the sea moan in inland

caves.

Darest thou observe how the fiends torture him?

Panthea. Alas! I looked forth twice, but will no more.

Ione. What didst thou see? Panthea. A woful sight: a youth With patient looks nailed to a crucifix. Ione. What next?

Panthea. The heaven around, the earth below

Was peopled with thick shapes of human death,

All horrible, and wrought by human hands,

And some appeared the work of human hearts,

For men were slowly killed by frowns and smiles: And other sights too

live

Were wandering by.

worse fear

foul to speak and

Let us not tempt

Travelled o'er by dying gleams;

Be it bright as all between
Cloudless skies and windless streams,
Silent, liquid, and serene;
As the birds within the wind,

As the fish within the wave,
As the thoughts of man's own mind
Float thro' all above the grave;
We make there our liquid lair,
Voyaging cloudlike and unpent
Thro' the boundless element:
Thence we bear the prophecy
Which begins and ends in thee!

Ione. More yet come, one by one: the air around them

Looks radiant as the air around a star.

First Spirit

On a battle-trumpet's blast
I fled hither, fast, fast, fast,
'Mid the darkness upward cast.
From the dust of creeds outworn,
From the tyrant's banner torn,
Gathering 'round me, onward borne,
There was mingled many a cry-
Freedom! Hope! Death! Victory!
Till they faded thro' the sky;
And one sound, above, around,
One sound beneath, around, above,
Was moving; 'twas the soul of love;
"Twas the hope, the prophecy,
Which begins and ends in thee.

Second Spirit

A rainbow's arch stood on the sea,
Which rocked beneath, immovably;
And the triumphant storm did flee,
Like a conqueror, swift and proud,
Between, with many a captive cloud,
A shapeless, dark and rapid crowd,
Each by lightning riven in half :
I heard the thunder hoarsely laugh:
Mighty fleets were strewn like chaff
And spread beneath a hell of death
O'er the white waters. I alit
On a great ship lightning-split,
And speeded hither on the sigh
Of one who gave an enemy

His plank, then plunged aside to die.

Third Spirit

I sate beside a sage's bed,
And the lamp was burning red
Near the book where he had fed,
When a Dream with plumes of flame,
To his pillow hovering came,
And I knew it was the same

Which had kindled long ago
Pity, eloquence, and woe;
And the world awhile below
Wore the shade its lustre made.
It has borne me here as fleet
As Desire's lightning feet;
I must ride it back ere morrow,
Or the sage will wake in sorrow.
Fourth Spirit

On a poet's lips I slept
Dreaming like a love-adept

In the sound his breathing kept;
Nor seeks nor finds he mortal blisses,
But feeds on the aërial kisses

Of shapes that haunt thought's wilder

nesses.

He will watch from dawn to gloom
The lake-reflected sun illume
The yellow bees in the ivy-bloom,
Nor heed nor see, what things they be
But from these create he can
Forms more real than living man,
Nurslings of immortality!
One of these awakened me,
And I sped to succor thee.

Ione

Behold'st thou not two shapes from the

east and west

Come, as two doves to one beloved nest, Twin nurslings of the all-sustaining air On swift still wings glide down the atmosphere?

And, hark! their sweet, sad voices! 'tis despair

Mingled with love and then dissolved in sound.

Panthea. Canst thou speak, sister? all my words are drowned.

Ione. Their beauty gives me voice. See how they float

On their sustaining wings of skiey grain, Orange and azure deepening into gold: Their soft smiles light the air like a star's fire.

Chorus of Spirits

Hast thou beheld the form of love?

Fifth Spirit

As over wide dominions

I sped, like some swift cloud that wings the wide air's wildernesses, That planet-crested shape swept by on lightning-braided pinions,

Scattering the liquid joy of life from his ambrosial tresses:

His footsteps paved the world with light; but as I past'twas fading, And hollow Ruin yawned behind: great sages bound in madness, And headless patriots, and pale youths who perished, unupbraiding, Gleamed in the night. I wandered o'er, till thou, O King of sadness, Turned by thy smile the worst I saw to recollected gladness. Sixth Spirit

Ah, sister! Desolation is a delicate thing: It walks not on the earth, it floats not on the air,

But treads with killing footstep, and fans with silent wing

The tender hopes which in their hearts the best and gentlest bear; Who, soothed to false repose by the fanning plumes above

And the music-stirring motion of its soft and busy feet,

Dream visions of aërial joy, and call the

monster, Love,

And wake, and find the shadow Pain, as he whom now we greet.

Chorus

Tho' Ruin now Love's shadow be,
Following him, destroyingly,

On Death's white and winged steed
Which the fleetest cannot flee.

Trampling down both flower and weed, Man and beast, and foul and fair, Like a tempest thro' the air; Thou shalt quell this horseman grim, Woundless though in heart or limb. Promethens. Spirits! how know ye this shall be ?

Chorus

In the atmosphere we breathe, As buds grow red when the snow-storms flee,

From spring gathering up beneath, Whose mild winds shake the elder brake, And the wandering herdsmen know That the white-thorn soon will blow: Wisdom, Justice, Love, and Peace, When they struggle to increase, Are to us as soft winds be To shepherd boys, the prophecy Which begins and ends in thee. Ione. Where are the Spirits fled? Panthea. Only a sense

Remains of them, like the omnipotence Of music, when the inspired voice and

lute

The roseate sunlight quivers: hear I not The Eolian music of her sea-green plumes

Winnowing the crimson dawn? [PANTHEA enters.

I feel, I see Those eyes which burn thro' smiles that fade in tears,

Like stars half quenched in mists of silver dew.

Beloved and most beautiful, who wearest The shadow of that soul by which I live, How late thou art! the sphered sun had climbed

The sea my heart was sick with hope, before

The printless air felt thy belated plumes. Panthea. Pardon, great Sister! but my wings were faint With the delight of a remembered dream,

As are the noontide plumes of summer winds