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A soft desire, a breathing thought of love.

Say, would thy star like Merope's grow Art the enchantress, and I feel thy

dim

If thou shouldst wed beneath thee?

power

Envelop me, and wrap my soul and sense
In an Elysian dream.

Thou thyself

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Between my seeing thee and loving thee.

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EPIMETHEUS.

O, what a telltale face thou hast ! Again I know not. "T is a mystery.
I see the wonder in thy tender eyes.

PANDORA.

They do but answer to the love in thine,

Yet secretly I wonder thou shouldst Lifted the lid?

love me.

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PANDORA.

Hast thou never

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Let us go forth from this mysterious place.

The garden walks are pleasant at this

hour;

The nightingales among the sheltering boughs

Of populous and many-nested trees
Shall teach me how to woo thee, and
shall tell me

By what resistless charms or incantations
They won their mates.

PANDORA.

Thou dost not need a teacher.

They go out.

CHORUS OF THE EUMENIDES.

What the Immortals
Confide to thy keeping,
Tell unto no man;
Waking or sleeping,
Closed be thy portals
To friend as to foeman.

Silence conceals it;
The word that is spoken
Betrays and reveals it;
By breath or by token
The charm may be broken.

With shafts of their splendors
The Gods unforgiving
Pursue the offenders,
The dead and the living!
Fortune forsakes them,
Nor earth shall abide them,
Nor Tartarus hide them;
Swift wrath overtakes them!

With useless endeavor,
Forever, forever,
Is Sisyphus rolling
His stone up the mountain!
Immersed in the fountain,
Tantalus tastes not
The water that wastes not!
Through ages increasing
The pangs that afflict him,
With motion unceasing
The wheel of Ixion
Shall torture its victim!

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VI.

IN THE GARDEN.

EPIMETHEUS.

YON Snow-white cloud that sails sublime

in ether

EPIMETHEUS.

Whence knowest thou these stories?

PANDORA.

Hermes taught me ;

Is but the sovereign Zeus, who like a He told me all the history of the Gods.

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And when he plays upon it to the shepherds

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PROMETHEUS.

They pity him, so mournful is the sound. Whom the Gods would destroy they first

Be thou not coy and cold as Syrinx was.

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make mad.

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PROMETHEUS, entering.

Who was it fled from here? I saw a shape

Flitting among the trees.

EPIMETHEUS.

It was Pandora.

PROMETHEUS.

O Epimetheus! Is it then in vain

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Pass and repass by the gates Of their inaccessible fastness; Ever unmoved they stand, Solemn, eternal, and proud.

VOICES OF THE WATERS. Flooded by rain and snow In their inexhaustible sources, Swollen by affluent streams Hurrying onward and hurled Headlong over the crags, The impetuous water-courses, Rush and roar and plunge Down to the nethermost world.

Say, have the solid rocks
Into streams of silver been melted,
Flowing over the plains,
Spreading to lakes in the fields?
Or have the mountains, the giants,
The ice-helmed, the forest-belted,
Scattered their arms abroad;
Flung in the meadows their shields ?

VOICES OF THE WINDS.

High on their turreted cliffs

That bolts of thunder have shattered,
Storm-winds muster and blow
Trumpets of terrible breath;
Then from the gateways rush,
And before them routed and scattered
Sullen the cloud-rack flies,

Pale with the pallor of death.

Onward the hurricane rides,
And flee for shelter the shepherds;
White are the frightened leaves,
Harvests with terror are white;
Panic seizes the herds,

And even the lions and leopards,
Prowling no longer for prey,
Crouch in their caverns with fright.

VOICES OF THE FOREST.

Guarding the mountains around
Majestic the forests are standing,
Bright are their crested helms,
Dark is their armor of leaves;
Filled with the breath of freedom
Each bosom subsiding, expanding,
Now like the ocean sinks,
Now like the ocean upheaves.

Planted firm on the rock,
With foreheads stern and defiant,
Loud they shout to the winds,
Loud to the tempest they call;
Naught but Olympian thunders,
That blasted Titan and Giant,
Them can uproot and o'erthrow,
Shaking the earth with their fall.

CHORUS OF OREADES.

These are the Voices Three

Of winds and forests and fountains,
Voices of earth and of air,
Murmur and rushing of streams,
Making together one sound,
The mysterious voice of the mountains,
Waking the sluggard that sleeps,
Waking the dreamer of dreams.

These are the Voices Three,
That speak of endless endeavor,
Speak of endurance and strength,
Triumph and fulness of fame,
Sounding about the world,
An inspiration forever,
Stirring the hearts of men,
Shaping their end and their aim.

VII.

THE HOUSE OF EPIMETHEUS.

PANDORA.

LEFT to myself I wander as I will, And as my fancy leads me, through this house,

Nor could I ask a dwelling more complete

Were indeed the Goddess that he deems me.

No mansion of Olympus, framed to be
The habitation of the Immortal Gods,
Can be more beautiful. And this is mine
And more than this, the love wherewith
he crowns me.

As if impelled by powers invisible
And irresistible, my steps return
Unto this spacious hall. All corridors
And passages lead hither, and all doors
But open into it. Yon mysterious chest
Attracts and fascinates me. Would I

knew

Forbids. Ah me! The secret then is

safe.

So would it be if it were in my keeping. A crowd of shadowy faces from the mir

rors

That line these walls are watching me.
I dare not
Lift up the lid.

A hundred times the

act Would be repeated, and the secret seen By twice a hundred incorporeal eyes.

She walks to the other side of the hall. My feet are weary, wandering to and fro,

My eyes with seeing and my heart with waiting.

I will lie here and rest till he returns, Who is my dawn, my day, my Helios. Throws herself upon a couch, and falls asleep.

ZEPHYRUS.

Come from thy caverns dark and deep,
O son of Erebus and Night;
All sense of hearing and of sight
Enfold in the serene delight
And quietude of sleep!

Set all thy silent sentinels
To bar and guard the Ivory Gate,
And keep the evil dreams of fate
And falsehood and infernal hate
Imprisoned in their cells.

But open wide the Gate of Horn,
Whence, beautiful as planets, rise
The dreams of truth, with starry eyes,
And all the wondrous prophecies
And visions of the morn.

CHORUS OF DREAMS FROM THE IVORY GATE.

Ye sentinels of sleep,
It is in vain ye keep

Your drowsy watch before the Ivory
Gate;

Ye

Though closed the portal seems, The airy feet of dreams cannot thus in walls incarcerate.

We phantoms are and dreams
Born by Tartarean streams,

What there lies hidden! But the oracle As ministers of the infernal powers;

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