PROMETHEUS: How fair these airborn shapes! and yet I feel Most vain all hope but love; and thou art far, Asia! who, when my being overflowed, Wert like a golden chalice to bright wine _810 Which else had sunk into the thirsty dust. All things are still: alas! how heavily This quiet morning weighs upon my heart; Though I should dream I could even sleep with grief If slumber were denied not. I would fain _815 Be what it is my destiny to be, The saviour and the strength of suffering man, Or sink into the original gulf of things: There is no agony, and no solace left; Earth can console, Heaven can torment no more. _820 PANTHEA: Hast thou forgotten one who watches thee The cold dark night, and never sleeps but when The shadow of thy spirit falls on her? PROMETHEUS: I said all hope was vain but love: thou lovest. PANTHEA: Deeply in truth; but the eastern star looks white, _825 And Asia waits in that far Indian vale, The scene of her sad exile; rugged once And desolate and frozen, like this ravine; But now invested with fair flowers and herbs, And haunted by sweet airs and sounds, which flow _830 Among the woods and waters, from the aether Of her transforming presence, which would fade If it were mingled not with thine. Farewell! END OF ACT 1. ACT 2. SCENE 2.1: MORNING. A LOVELY VALE IN THE INDIAN CAUCASUS. ASIA, ALONE. ASIA: From all the blasts of heaven thou hast descended: Yes, like a spirit, like a thought, which makes Unwonted tears throng to the horny eyes, And beatings haunt the desolated heart, Which should have learnt repose: thou hast descended _5 Cradled in tempests; thou dost wake, O Spring! O child of many winds! As suddenly Thou comest as the memory of a dream, Which now is sad because it hath been sweet; Like genius, or like joy which riseth up _10 As from the earth, clothing with golden clouds The desert of our life. This is the season, this the day, the hour; At sunrise thou shouldst come, sweet sister mine, Too long desired, too long delaying, come! _15 How like death-worms the wingless moments crawl! The point of one white star is quivering still Deep in the orange light of widening morn Beyond the purple mountains: through a chasm Of wind-divided mist the darker lake _20 Reflects it: now it wanes: it gleams again As the waves fade, and as the burning threads Of woven cloud unravel in pale air: 'Tis lost! and through yon peaks of cloud-like snow The roseate sunlight quivers: hear I not _25 The Aeolian music of her sea-green plumes Winnowing the crimson dawn?