Percy Bysshe Shelley - Prometheus Unbound (Act 2 Scene 2.3) lyrics

SCENE 2.3: A PINNACLE OF ROCK AMONG MOUNTAINS. ASIA AND PANTHEA PANTHEA: Hither the sound has borne us—to the realm Of Demogorgon, and the mighty portal, Like a volcano's meteor-breathing chasm, Whence the oracular vapour is hurled up Which lonely men drink wandering in their youth, And call truth, virtue, love, genius, or joy, That maddening wine of life, whose dregs they drain To deep intoxication; and uplift, Like Maenads who cry loud, Evoe! Evoe! The voice which is contagion to the world. ASIA: Fit throne for such a Power! Magnificent! How glorious art thou, Earth! And if thou be The shadow of some spirit lovelier still, Though evil stain its work, and it should be Like its creation, weak yet beautiful, _15 I could fall down and worship that and thee. Even now my heart adoreth: Wonderful! Look, sister, ere the vapour dim thy brain: Beneath is a wide plain of billowy mist, As a lake, paving in the morning sky, With azure waves which burst in silver light, Some Indian vale. Behold it, rolling on Under the curdling winds, and islanding The peak whereon we stand, midway, around, Encinctured by the dark and blooming forests, Dim twilight-lawns, and stream-illumined caves, And wind-enchanted shapes of wandering mist; And far on high the keen sky-cleaving mountains From icy spires of sun-like radiance fling The dawn, as lifted Ocean's dazzling spray, From some Atlantic islet scattered up, Spangles the wind with lamp-like water-drops. The vale is girdled with their walls, a howl Of cataracts from their thaw-cloven ravines, Satiates the listening wind, continuous, vast, Awful as silence. Hark! the rushing snow! The sun-awakened avalanche! whose ma**, Thrice sifted by the storm, had gathered there Flake after flake, in heaven-defying minds As thought by thought is piled, till some great truth Is loosened, and the nations echo round, Shaken to their roots, as do the mountains now. PANTHEA: Look how the gusty sea of mist is breaking In crimson foam, even at our feet! it rises As Ocean at the enchantment of the moon Round foodless men wrecked on some oozy isle. ASIA: The fragments of the cloud are scattered up; The wind that lifts them disentwines my hair; Its billows now sweep o'er mine eyes; my brain Grows dizzy; see'st thou shapes within the mist? PANTHEA: A countenance with beckoning smiles: there burns An azure fire within its golden locks! Another and another: hark! they speak! SONG OF SPIRITS: To the deep, to the deep, Down, down! Through the shade of sleep, Through the cloudy strife Of d**h and of Life; Through the veil and the bar Of things which seem and are Even to the steps of the remotest throne, Down, down! While the sound whirls around, Down, down! As the fawn draws the hound, As the lightning the vapour, As a weak moth the taper; d**h, despair; love, sorrow; Time both; to-day, to-morrow; As steel obeys the spirit of the stone, Down, down! Through the gray, void abysm, Down, down! Where the air is no prism, And the moon and stars are not, And the cavern-crags wear not The radiance of Heaven, Nor the gloom to Earth given, Where there is One pervading, One alone, Down, down! In the depth of the deep, Down, down! Like veiled lightning asleep, Like the spark nursed in embers, The last look Love remembers, Like a diamond, which shines On the dark wealth of mines, A spell is treasured but for thee alone. Down, down! We have bound thee, we guide thee; Down, down! With the bright form beside thee; Resist not the weakness, Such strength is in meekness That the Eternal, the Immortal, Must unloose through life's portal The snake-like Doom coiled underneath his throne By that alone.