_Oceanus._ Thy words drive after, as I rush before. Lo! my four-footed bird sweeps smooth and wide The flats of air with balanced pinions, glad To bend his knee at home in the ocean-stall. [_OCEANUS departs._ _Chorus, 1st Strophe._ I moan thy fate, I moan for thee, Prometheus! From my eyes too tender, Drop after drop incessantly The tears of my heart's pity render My cheeks wet from their fountains free; Because that Zeus, the stern and cold, Whose law is taken from his breast, Uplifts his sceptre manifest Over the gods of old. _1st Antistrophe._ All the land is moaning With a murmured plaint to-day; All the mortal nations Having habitations In the holy Asia Are a dirge entoning For thine honour and thy brothers', Once majestic beyond others In the old belief,-- Now are groaning in the groaning Of thy deep-voiced grief. _2nd Strophe._ Mourn the maids inhabitant Of the Colchian land, Who with white, calm bosoms stand In the battle's roar: Mourn the Scythian tribes that haunt The verge of earth, Mæotis' shore. _2nd Antistrophe._ Yea! Arabia's battle-crown, And dwellers in the beetling town Mount Caucasus sublimely nears,-- An iron squadron, thundering down With the sharp-prowed spears. But one other before, have I seen to remain By invincible pain Bound and vanquished,--one Titan! 'twas Atlas, who bears In a curse from the gods, by that strength of his own Which he evermore wears, The weight of the heaven on his shoulder alone, While he sighs up the stars; And the tides of the ocean wail bursting their bars,-- Murmurs still the profound, And black Hades roars up through the chasm of the ground, And the fountains of pure-running rivers moan low In a pathos of woe.