PROMETHEUS, OR THE POET'S FORETHOUGHT F Prometheus, how undaunted OF On Olympus' shining bastions His audacious foot he planted, Beautiful is the tradition Of that flight through heavenly portals, The old classic superstition Of the theft and the transmission Of the fire of the Immortals ! First the deed of noble daring, Born of heavenward aspiration, Then the fire with mortals sharing, Then the vulture, -- the despairing Cry of pain on crags Caucasian. All is but a symbol painted Of the Poet, Prophet, Seer; Only those are crowned and sainted In their feverish exultations, In their triumph and their yearning, Shall it, then, be unavailing, All this toil for human culture? Through the cloud-rack, dark and trailing Must they see above them sailing O'er life's barren crags the vulture? Such a fate as this was Dante's, By defeat and exile maddened; Thus were Milton and Cervantes, Nature's priests and Corybantes, By affliction touched and saddened. But the glories so transcendent That around their memories cluster, And, on all their steps attendant, All the melodies mysterious, Through the dreary darkness chanted; Thoughts in attitudes imperious, Words that whispered, songs that haunted! All the soul in rapt suspension, Ah, Prometheus! heaven-scaling! Round the cloudy crags Caucasian! Though to all there is not given Strength for such sublime endeavor, Thus to scale the walls of heaven, Yet all bards, whose hearts unblighted Gleaming through the realms benighted, |