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a monologue from
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PROMETHEUS UNBOUND
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- PHANTASM: Fiend, I defy thee! with a calm, fixed mind,
- All that thou canst inflict I bid thee do;
- Foul Tyrant both of Gods and Humankind,
- One only being shalt thou not subdue.
- Rain then thy plagues upon me here,
- Ghastly disease, and frenzying fear;
- And let alternate frost and fire
- Eat into me, and be thine ire
- Lightning, and cutting hail, and legioned forms
- Of furies, driving by upon the wounding storms.
- Ay, do thy worst. Thou art omnipotent.
- O'er all things but thyself I gave thee power,
- And my own will. Be thy swift mischiefs sent
- To blast mankind, from yon ethereal tower.
- Let thy malignant spirit move
- In darkness over those I love:
- On me and mine I imprecate
- The utmost torture of thy hate;
- And thus devote to sleepless agony,
- This undeclining head while thou must reign on high.
- But thou, who art the God and Lord: O, thou,
- Who fillest with thy soul this world of woe,
- To whom all things of Earth and Heaven do bow
- In fear and worship: all-prevailing foe!
- I curse thee! let a sufferer's curse
- Clasp thee, her torturer, like remorse;
- Till thine Infinity shall be
- A robe of envenomed agony;
- And thine Omnipotence a crown of pain,
- To cling like burning gold round thy dissolving brain.
- Heap on thy soul, by virtue of this Curse,
- Ill deeds, then be thou damned, beholding good;
- Both infinite as is the universe,
- And thou, and thy self-torturing solitude.
- An awful image of calm power
- Though now thou sittest, let the hour
- Come, when thou must appear to be
- That which thou art internally;
- And after many a false and fruitless crime
- Scorn track thy lagging fall through boundless space and time.
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