Poetical Works
of
ROBERT BRIDGES

Volume I

London
Smith, Elder & Co
15 Waterloo Place
1898

OXFORD: HORACE HART
PRINTER TO THE UNIVERSITY

POETICAL WORKS OF
ROBERT BRIDGES

VOLUME THE FIRST
CONTAINING

LIST OF PREVIOUS EDITIONS

PROMETHEUS.

1. Private Press of H. Daniel. Oxford, 1883.

2. Chiswick Press. Geo. Bell & Sons, 1884.

EROS AND PSYCHE.

1. Chiswick Press. Geo. Bell & Sons, 1885.

2. Do. do. Revised, 1894.
This last volume is still on sale.

GROWTH OF LOVE.

1. XXIV Sonnets. Ed. Bumpus, 1876.

2. LXXIX Sonnets. Daniel Press, 1889.
This edition was copied in America.

3. Do. do. Black letter. 1890.

[PROMETHEUS]
THE
FIREGIVER

A MASK IN THE
GREEK MANNER

ARGUMENT

PROMETHEUS COMING ON EARTH TO GIVE FIRE TO MEN APPEARS BEFORE THE PALACE OF INACHUS IN ARGOS ON A FESTIVAL OF ZEUS · HE INTERRUPTS THE CEREMONY BY ANNOUNCING FIRE AND PERSUADES INACHUS TO DARE THE ANGER OF ZEUS AND ACCEPT THE GIFT · INACHUS FETCHING ARGEIA HIS WIFE FROM THE PALACE HAS IN TURN TO QUIET HER FEARS · HE ASKS A PROPHECY OF PROMETHEUS WHO FORETELLS THE FATE OF IO THEIR DAUGHTER · PROMETHEUS THEN SETTING FLAME TO THE ALTAR AND WRITING HIS OWN NAME THEREON IN THE PLACE OF ZEUS DISAPPEARS

THE CHORUS SING (1) A HYMN TO ZEUS WITH THE STORIES OF THE BIRTH OF ZEUS AND THE MARRIAGE OF HERA WITH THE DANCES OF THE CURETES AND THE HESPERIDES (2) THEIR ANTICIPATION OF FIRE WITH AN ODE ON WONDER (3) A TRAGIC HYMN ON THE LOT OF MAN (4) A FIRE-CHORUS (5) A FINAL CHORUS IN PRAISE OF PROMETHEUS

ALL THE CHARACTERS ARE GOOD · PROMETHEUS PROLOGIZES · HE CARRIES A LONG REED

DRAMATIS PERSONÆ

PROMETHEUS.
INACHUS.
ARGEIA.
SERVANT.
IO (persona muta).
CHORUS: Youths and maidens of the house of
Inachus.

The SCENE is in ARGOS before the palace of Inachus.
An altar inscribed to Zeus is at the
centre of the stage.

PROMETHEUS
THE FIREGIVER

PROMETHEUS.

From high Olympus and the ætherial courts,

Where mighty Zeus our angry king confirms

The Fates’ decrees and bends the wills of the gods,

I come: and on the earth step with glad foot.

This variegated ocean-floor of the air,

The changeful circle of fair land, that lies

Heaven’s dial, sisterly mirror of night and day:

The wide o’er-wandered plain, this nether world

My truant haunt is, when from jealous eyes

I steal, for hither ’tis I steal, and here 10

Unseen repair my joy: yet not unseen

Methinks, nor seen unguessed of him I seek.

Rather by swath or furrow, or where the path

Is walled with corn I am found, by trellised vine

Or olive set in banks or orchard trim:

I watch all toil and tilth, farm, field and fold,

And taste the mortal joy; since not in heaven

Among our easeful gods hath facile time

A touch so keen, to wake such love of life

As stirs the frail and careful being, who here, 20

The king of sorrows, melancholy man,

Bows at his labour, but in heart erect

A god stands, nor for any gift of god

Would barter his immortal-hearted prime.

Could I but win this world from Zeus for mine,

With not a god to vex my happy rule,

I would inhabit here and leave high heaven:

So much I love it and its race of men,

Even as he hates them, hates both them, and me

For loving what he hates, and would destroy me,

Outcast in the scorn of all his cringing crew,

For daring but to save what he would slay:

And me must first destroy. Thus he denieth

My heart’s wish, thus my counsel sets at naught,

Which him saved once, when all at stake he stood

Uprisen in rebellion to overthrow

The elderseated Titans, for I that day

Gave him the counsels which his foes despised.

Unhappy they, who had still their blissful seats

Preserved and their Olympian majesty, 40

Had they been one with me. Alas, my kin!

But he, when he had taken the throne and chained

His foes in wasteful Tartarus, said no more

Where is Prometheus our wise counsellor?

What saith Prometheus? tell us, O Prometheus,

What Fate requires! but waxing confident

And wanton, as a youth first tasting power,

He wrecked the timeless monuments of heaven,

The witness of the wisdom of the gods,

And making all about him new, beyond 50

Determined to destroy the race of men,

And that create afresh or else have none.

Then his vain mind imagined a device,

And at his bidding all the opposèd winds

Blew, and the scattered clouds and furlèd snows,

From every part of heaven together flying,

He with brute hands in huge disorder heaped:

They with the winds’ weight and his angry breath

Were thawed: in cataracts they fell, and earth

In darkness deep and whelmèd tempest lay, 60

Drowned’neath the waters. Yet on the mountain-tops

Some few escaped, and some, thus warned by me,

Made shift to live in vessels which outrode

The season and the fury of the flood.

And when his rain was spent and from clear skies

Zeus looking down upon the watery world,

Beheld these few, the remnant of mankind,

Who yet stood up and breathed; he next withdrew

The seeds of fire, that else had still lain hid

In withered branch and the blue flakes of flint 70

For man to exact and use, but these withdrawn,

Man with the brutes degraded would be man

No more; and so the tyrant was content.

But I, despised again, again upheld

The weak, and pitying them sent sweet Hope,

Bearer of dreams, enchantress fond and kind,

From heaven descending on the unhindered rays

Of every star, to cheer with visions fair

Their unamending pains. And now this day

Behold I come bearing the seal of all 80

Which Hope had promised: for within this reed

A prisoner I bring them stolen from heaven,

The flash of mastering fire, and it have borne

So swift to earth, that when yon noontide sun

Rose from the sea at morning I was by,

And unperceived of Hêlios plunged the point

I’ the burning axle, and withdrew a tongue

Of breathing flame, which lives to leap on earth

For man the father of all fire to come.

And hither have I brought it even to Argos 90

Unto king Inachus, him having chosen

Above all mortals to receive my gift:

For he is hopeful, careful, wise, and brave.

He first, when first the floods left bare the land,

Grew warm with enterprise, and gathered men

Together, and disposed their various tasks

For common weal combined; for soon were seen

The long straight channels dwindling on the plain,

Which slow from stagnant pool and wide morass

The pestilent waters to the rivers bore: 100

Then in the ruined dwellings and old tombs

He dug, unbedding from the wormèd ooze

Vessels and tools of trade and husbandry;

Wherewith, all seasonable works restored,

Oil made he and wine anew, and taught mankind

To live not brutally though without fire,

Tending their flocks and herds and weaving wool,

Living on fruit and milk and shepherds’ fare,

Till time should bring back flame to smithy and hearth,

Or Zeus relent. Now at these gates I stand, 110

At this mid hour, when Inachus comes forth

To offer sacrifice unto his foe.

For never hath his faithful zeal forborne

To pay the power, though hard, that rules the world

The smokeless sacrifice; which first today

Shall smoke, and rise at heaven in flame to brave

The baffled god. See here a servant bears

For the cold altar ceremonial wood:

My shepherd’s cloak will serve me for disguise.

SERVANT.

With much toil have I hewn these sapless logs. 120

Pr. But toil brings health, and health is happiness.

Serv. Here’s one I know not—nay, how came he here

Unseen by me? I pray thee, stranger, tell me

What would’st thou at the house of Inachus?

Pr. Intruders, friend, and travellers have glib tongues,

Silence will question such.

Serv. If ’tis a message,

To-day is not thy day—who sent thee hither?

Pr. The business of my leisure was well guessed:

But he that sent me hither is I that come.

Serv. I smell the matter—thou would’st serve the house? 130

Pr. ’Twas for that very cause I fled my own.

Serv. From cruelty or fear of punishment?

Pr. Cruel was my master, for he slew his father.

His punishments thou speakest of are crimes.

Serv. Thou dost well flying one that slew his father.

Pr. Thy lord, they say, is kind.

Serv. Well, thou wilt see.

Thou may’st at once begin—come, give a hand.

Pr. A day of freedom is a day of pleasure;

And what thou doest have I never done,

And understanding not might mar thy work. 140

Serv. Ay true—there is a right way and a wrong

In laying wood.

Pr. Then let me see thee lay it:

The sight of a skill’d hand will teach an art.

Serv. Thou seest this faggot which I now unbind,

How it is packed within.

Pr. I see the cones

And needles of the fir, which by the wind

In melancholy places ceaselessly

Sighing are strewn upon the tufted floor.

Serv. These took I from a sheltered bank, whereon

The sun looks down at noon; for there is need

The things be dry. These first I spread; and then

Small sticks that snap i’ the hand.

Pr. Such are enough

To burden the slow flight of labouring rooks,

When on the leafless tree-tops in young March

Their glossy herds assembling soothe the air 155

With cries of solemn joy and cawings loud.

And such the long-necked herons will bear to mend

Their airy platform, when the loving spring

Bids them take thought for their expected young.

Serv. See even so I cross them and cross them so:

Larger and by degrees a steady stack 161

Have built, whereon the heaviest logs may lie:

And all of sun-dried wood: and now ’tis done.

Pr. And now ’tis done, what means it now ’tis done?

Serv. Well, thus ’tis rightly done: but why ’tis so

I cannot tell, nor any man here knows;

Save that our master when he sacrificeth,

As thou wilt hear anon, speaketh of fire;

And fire he saith is good for gods and men;

And the gods have it and men have it not: 170

And then he prays the gods to send us fire;

And we, against they send it, must have wood

Laid ready thus as I have shewn thee here.

Pr. To-day he sacrificeth?

Serv. Ay, this noon.

Hark! hear’st thou not? they come. The solemn flutes

Warn us away; we must not here be seen

In these our soilèd habits, yet may stand

Where we may hear and see and not be seen.

[Exeunt R.

Enter CHORUS, and from the palace Inachus bearing cakes: he comes to stand behind the altar.

CHORUS.

God of Heaven!

We praise thee, Zeus most high, 180

To whom by eternal Fate was given

The range and rule of the sky;

When thy lot, first of three

Leapt out, as sages tell,

And won Olympus for thee,

Therein for ever to dwell:

But the next with the barren sea

To grave Poseidôn fell,

And left fierce Hades his doom, to be

The lord and terror of hell. 190

(2) Thou sittest for aye

Encircled in azure bright,

Regarding the path of the sun by day,

And the changeful moon by night:

Attending with tireless ears

To the song of adoring love,

With which the separate spheres

Are voicèd that turn above:

And all that is hidden under

The clouds thy footing has furl’d 200

Fears the hand that holdeth the thunder,

The eye that looks on the world.

Semichorus of youths.

Of all the isles of the sea

Is Crete most famed in story:

Above all mountains famous to me

Is Ida and crowned with glory.

There guarded of Heaven and Earth

Came Rhea at fall of night

To hide a wondrous birth

From the Sire’s unfathering sight. 210

The halls of Cronos rang

With omens of coming ill,

And the mad Curêtes danced and sang

Adown the slopes of the hill.

Then all the peaks of Gnossus kindled red

Beckoning afar unto the sinking sun,

He thro’ the vaporous west plunged to his bed,

Sunk, and the day was done.

But they, though he was fled,

Such light still held, as oft 220

Hanging in air aloft,

At eve from shadowed ship

The Egyptian sailor sees:

Or like the twofold tip

That o’er the topmost trees

Flares on Parnassus, and the Theban dames

Quake at the ghostly flames.

Then friendly night arose

To succour Earth, and spread

Her mantle o’er the snows 230

And quenched their rosy red;

But in the east upsprings

Another light on them,

Selêné with white wings

And hueless diadem.

Little could she befriend

Her father’s house and state,

Nor her weak beams defend

Hypérion from his fate.

Only where’er she shines, 240

In terror looking forth,

She sees the wailing pines

Stoop to the bitter North:

Or searching twice or thrice