But he who blows his hands Not so gay a carol brings. Let us by the fire Ever higher Sing them till the night expire! PROMETHEUS, OR THE POET'S FORETHOUGHT. OF Prometheus, how undaunted 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; In their feverish exultations, In their triumph and their yearning, In their passionate pulsations, 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; But the glories so transcendent That around their memories cluster, And, on all their steps attendant, Make their darkened lives resplendent With such gleams of inward lustre ! All the melodies mysterious, Through the dreary darkness chaunted; Thoughts in attitudes imperious, Voices soft, and deep, and serious, 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, |