PROMETHEUS. All, all I knew, whate’er his tongue In idle arrogance hath flung. ’Tis the world’s way, the common lot— Foe tortures foe and pities not. Therefore I challenge him to dash His bolt on me, his zigzag flash Of piercing, rending flame! Now be the welkin stirred amain With thunder-peal and hurricane, And let the wild winds now displace From its firm poise and rooted base The stubborn earthly frame! The raging sea with stormy surge Rise up and ravin and submerge Each high star-trodden way! Me let him lift and dash to gloom Of nether hell, in whirls of doom! Yet—do he what extremes he may— He cannot crush my life away! HERMES. Such are the counsels, such the strain, Heard from wild lips and frenzied brain! In word or thought, how fails his fate Of madness wild and desperate? (_To the_ CHORUS) But ye, who stand compassionate Here at his side, depart in haste! Lest of his penalty ye taste, And shattered brain and reason feel The roaring, ruthless thunder-peal! CHORUS. Out on thee! if thy heart be fain I should obey thee, change thy strain! Vile is thine hinted cowardice, And loathed of me thy base advice, Weakly to shrink from pain! Nay, at his side, whate’er befall, I will abide, endure it all! Among all things abhorr’d, accurst, I hold betrayers for the worst! HERMES. Nay, ye are warned! remember well— Nor cry, when meshed in nets of hell, _Ah cruel fate, ah Zeus unkind— Thus, by a sentence undivined, To dash us to the realms below!_ It is no sudden, secret blow— Nay, ye achieve your proper woe— Warn’d and foreknowing shall ye go, Through your own folly trapped and ta’en, Into the net the Fates ordain— The vast, illimitable pain! [_Thunder and lightning._] PROMETHEUS. Hark! for no more in empty word, But in sheer sooth, the world is stirred! The massy earth doth heave and sway, And thro’ their dark and secret way The cavern’d thunders boom! See, how they gleam athwart the sky, The lightnings, through the gloom! And whirlwinds roll the dust on high, And right and left the storm-clouds leap To battle in the skyey deep, In wildest uproar unconfined, An universe of warring wind! And falling sky and heaving sea Are blent in one! on me, on me, Nearer and ever yet more near, Flaunting its pageantry of fear, Drives down in might its destined road The tempest of the wrath of God! O holy Earth, O mother mine! O Sky, that biddest speed along Thy vault the common Light divine,— Be witness of my wrong! [_The rocks are rent with fire and earthquake, and fall, burying PROMETHEUS in the ruins._]