LITMIR.BIZ

       Sem. (youths). Is this a god that speaketh thus? Sem. (maidens). He speaketh as a man In love or great affliction yields his soul. In. Thou, whencesoe'er thou comest, whoe'er thou art, Who breakest on our solemn sacrifice With solemn words, I pray thee not depart 510 Till thou hast told me more. This fire I seek Not for myself, whose thin and silvery hair Tells that my toilsome age nears to its end, But for my children and the aftertime, For great the need thereof, wretched our state; Nay, set by what has been, our happiness Is very want, so that what now is not Is but the measure of what yet may be. And first are barest needs, which well I know Fire would supply, but I have hope beyond, 520 That Nature in recovering her right Would kinder prove to man who seeks to learn Her secrets and unfold the cause of life. So tell me, if thou knowest, what is fire? Doth earth contain it? or, since from the sun Fire reaches us, since in the glimmering stars And pallid moon, in lightning, and the glance Of tracking meteors that at nightfall show How in the air a thousand sightless things Travel, and ever on their windswift course 530 Flame when they list and into darkness go— Since in all these a fiery nature dwells, Is fire an airy essence, a thing of heaven, That, could we poise it, were an alien power{19} To make our wisdom less, our wonder more? Pr. Thy wish to know is good, and happy is he Who thus from chance and change has launched his mind To dwell for ever with undisturbèd truth. This high ambition doth not prompt his hand To crime, his right and pleasure are not wronged 540 By folly of his fellows, nor his eye Dimmed by the griefs that move the tears of men. Son of the earth, and citizen may be Of Argos or of Athens and her laws, But still the eternal nature, where he looks, O'errules him with the laws which laws obey, And in her heavenly city enrols his heart. In. Thus ever have I held of happiness, The child of heavenly truth, and thus have found it In prayer and meditation and still thought, 550 And thus my peace of mind based on a floor That doth not quaver like the joys of sense: Those I possess enough in seeing my slaves And citizens enjoy, having myself Tasted for once and put their sweets away. But of that heavenly city, of which thou sayest Her laws o'errule us, have I little learnt, For when my wandering spirit hath dared alone The unearthly terror of her voiceless halls, She hath fallen from delight, and without guide 560 Turned back, and from her errand fled for fear. Pr. Think not that thou canst all things know, nor deem Such knowledge happiness: the all-knowing Fates No pleasure have, who sit eternally Spinning the unnumbered threads that Time hath woven, And weaves, upgathering in his furthest house To store from sight; but what 'tis joy to learn Or use to know, that may'st thou ask of right. In. Then tell me, for thou knowest, what is fire? Pr. Know then, O king, that this fair earth of men, 570{20} The Olympus of the gods, and all the heavens Are lesser kingdoms of the boundless space Wherein Fate rules; they have their several times, Their seasons and the limit of their thrones, And from the nature of eternal things Springing, themselves are changed; even as the trees Or birds or beasts of earth, which now arise To being, now in turn decay and die. The heaven and earth thou seest, for long were held By Fire, a raging power, to whom the Fates 580 Decreed a slow diminishing old age, But to his daughter, who is that gentle goddess, Queen of the clear and azure firmament, In heaven called Hygra, but by mortals Air, To her, the child of his slow doting years, Was given a beauteous youth, not long to outlast His life, but be the pride of his decay, And win to gentler sway his lost domains. And when the day of time arrived, when Air Took o'er from her decrepit sire the third 590 Of the Sun's kingdoms, the one-moonèd earth, Straight came she down to her inheritance. Gaze on the sun with thine unshaded eye And shrink from what she saw. Forests of fire Whose waving trunks, sucking their fuel, reared In branched flame roaring, and their torrid shades Aye underlit with fire. The mountains lifted And fell and followed like a running sea, And from their swelling flanks spumed froth of fire; Or, like awakening monsters, mighty mounds 600 Rose on the plain awhile. Sem. (maidens). He discovers a foe. Sem. (youths). An enemy he paints. Pr. These all she quenched, Or charmed their fury into the dens and bowels Of earth to smoulder, there the vital heat{21} To hold for her creation, which then—to her aid Summoning high Reason from his home in heaven— She wrought anew upon the temperate lands. Sem. (maidens). 'Twas well Air won this kingdom of her sire. Sem. (youths). Now say how made she green this home of fire. Pr. The waters first she brought, that in their streams And pools and seas innumerable things 611 Brought forth, from whence she drew the fertile seeds Of trees and plants, and last of footed life, That wandered forth, and roaming to and fro, The rejoicing earth peopled with living sound. Reason advised, and Reason praised her toil; Which when she had done she gave him thanks, and said, 'Fair comrade, since thou praisest what is done, Grant me this favour ere thou part from me: Make thou one fair thing for me, which shall suit 620 With what is made, and be the best of all.' 'Twas evening, and that night Reason made man. Sem. (maidens). Children of Air are we, and live by fire. Sem. (youths). The sons of Reason dwelling on the earth. Sem. (maidens). Folk of a pleasant kingdom held between Fire's reign of terror and the latter day When dying, soon in turn his child must die. Sem. (youths). Having a wise creator, above time Or youth or change, from whom our kind inherit The grace and pleasure of the eternal gods. 630 In. But how came gods to rule this earth of Air? Pr. They also were her children who first ruled, Cronos, Iapetus, Hypérion, Theia and Rhea, and other mighty names That are but names—whom Zeus drave out from heaven, And with his tribe sits on their injured thrones.{22} In. There is no greater god in heaven than he. Pr. Nor none more cruel nor more tyrannous. In. But what can man against the power of god? Pr. Doth not man strive with him? thyself dost pray. In. That he may pardon our contrarious deeds. 641 Pr. Alas! Alas! what more contrarious deed, What greater miracle of wrong than this,

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