Page:Prometheus Bound, and other poems.djvu/39

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PROMETHEUS BOUND.
33

Hath overworn me,—
And I know not on what shore
I may rest from my despair.


Chorus. Hearest thou what the ox-horned maiden saith?

Prometheus. How could I choose but hearken what she saith,
The frenzied maiden?—Inachus's child?—
Who love-warms Zeus's heart, and now is lashed
By Here's hate, along the unending ways?


Io. Who taught thee to articulate that name,—
My father's? Speak to his child,
By grief and shame defiled!
Who art thou, victim, thou—who dost acclaim
Mine anguish in true words, on the wide air?
And callest too by name, the curse that came
From Here unaware,
To waste and pierce me with the maddening goad.
Ah—ah—I leap
With the pang of the hungry—I bound on the road—
I am driven by my doom—
I am overcome
By the wrath of an enemy strong and deep!
Are any of those who have tasted pain,
Alas!—as sad as I?
Now tell me plain, doth aught remain
For my soul to endure beneath the sky?
Is there any help to be holpen by?
If knowledge be in thee, let it be said—
Cry aloud—cry
To the wandering, woeful maid.