The tablet of unutterable thoughts

Was traced, and then it faded as it came,
And he stood calm and quiet, and he spoke
The fitting vows, but heard not his own words,
And all things reel'd around him; he could see
Not that which was, nor that which should have been-
But the old mansion, and the accustom'd hall,
And the remember'd chambers, and the place,

The day, the hour, the sunshine, and the shade,
All things pertaining to that place and hour,
And her who was his destiny, came back

And thrust themselves between him and the light:
What business had they there at such a time?

VII.

A change came o'er the spirit of my dream..
The lady of his love;-Oh! she was changed
As by the sickness of the soul; her mind
Had wander'd from its dwelling, and her eyes
They had not their own lustre, but the look
Which is not of the earth; she was become
The queen of a fantastic realm; her thoughts
Were combinations of disjointed things;

And forms impalpable and unperceived

Of others' sight familiar were to hers.

And this the world calls phrensy; but the wise

Have a far deeper madness, and the glance

Of melancholy is a fearful gift;

What is it but the telescope of truth?

Which strips the distance of its phantasies,
And brings life near in utter nakedness,
Making the cold reality too real!

VIII.

A change came o'er the spirit of my

dream.

The Wanderer was alone as heretofore,

The beings which surrounded him were gone,
Or were at war with him; he was a mark
For blight and desolation, compass'd round
With Hatred and Contention; Pain was mix'd
In all which was served up to him, until
Like to the Pontic monarch of old days, (11)
He fed on poisons, and they had no power,
But were a kind of nutriment; he lived

Through that which had been death to many men,

And made him friends of mountains: with the stars

And the quick Spirit of the Universe

He held his dialogues; and they did teach

To him the magic of their mysteries;

To him the book of Night was open'd wide,
And voices from the deep abyss reveal'd

A marvel and a secret-Be it so.

IX.

My dream was past; it had no further change. It was of a strange order, that the doom

Of these two creatures should be thus traced out Almost like a reality—the one

To end in madness-both in misery.

PROMETHEUS.

I.

TITAN! to whose immortal eyes

The sufferings of mortality,

Seen in their sad reality,

Were not as things that gods despise; What was thy pity's recompense?

A silent suffering, and intense;

The rock, the vulture, and the chain, All that the proud can feel of pain,

The agony they do not show,

The suffocating sense of woe,

Which speaks but in its loneliness, And then is jealous lest the sky Should have a listener, nor will sigh

Until its voice is echoless.

II.

Titan! to thee the strife was given
Between the suffering and the will,
Which torture where they cannot kill;

And the inexorable Heaven,

And the deaf tyranny of Fate,

The ruling principle of Hate,

Which for its pleasure doth create

The things it may annihilate,

Refused thee even the boon to die:

The wretched gift eternity

Was thine-and thou hast borne it well.
All that the Thunderer wrung from thee
Was but the menace which flung back

On him the torments of thy rack;
The fate thou didst so well foresee,
But would not to appease him tell;
And in thy Silence was his Sentence,
And in his Soul a vain repentance,
And evil dread so ill dissembled

That in his hand the lightnings trembled.