Nor is there any spirit on Earth astir,
Nor 'neath the airy vault, nor yet beyond
In any dweller in far-reaching space,
Nobler or dearer than the spirit of man :
That spirit which lives in each and will not die,
That wooeth beauty, and for all good things
Urgeth a voice, or in still passion sigheth,
And where he loveth draweth the heart with him.
Hast thou not heard him speaking oft and oft,
Prompting thy secret musings and now shooting
His feathered fancies, or in cloudy sleep
Piling his painted dreams? O hark to him!
For else if folly shut his joyous strength
To mope in her dark prison without praise,
The hidden tears with which he wails his wrong
Will sour the fount of life. O hark to him!
Him may'st thou trust beyond the things thou seest.
For many things there be upon this earth
Unblest and fallen from beauty, to mislead
Man's mind, and in a shadow justify
The evil thoughts and deeds that work his ill;
Fear, hatred, lust and strife, which, if man question
The heavenborn spirit within him, are not there.
Yet are they bold of face, and Zeus himself,
Seeing that Mischief held her head on high,
Lest she should go beyond his power to quell
And draw the inevitable Fate that waits
On utmost ill, himself preventing Fate
Hasted to drown the world, and now would crush
Thy little remnant: but among the gods
Is one whose love and courage stir for thee;
Who being of manlike spirit, by many shifts
Has stayed the hand of the enemy, who crieth
Thy world is not destroyed, thy good shall live:
Thou hast more power for good than Zeus for ill,
More courage, justice, more abundant art,
More love, more joy, more reason: though around thee
Rank-rooting evil bloom with poisonous crown,
Though wan and dolorous and crooked things
Have made their home with thee, thy good shall live.
Know thy desire: and know that if thou seek it,
And seek, and seek, and fear not, thou shalt find.
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
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,
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
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
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 undisturbed truth.
This high ambition doth not prompt his hand
To crime, his right and pleasure are not wronged
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,
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
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,
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.
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
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
Rose on the plain awhile.
SEM. (youths). An enemy he paints.
Or charmed their fury into the dens and bowels
Of earth to smoulder, there the vital heat
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 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 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
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.
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.
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