The glory of Day's shine, the white lights of Night,

Ere Earth was, ere Ocean, while Heaven there was

none,

With Eternity dwelt he, nor knew he the birth

Of his being or rule over void brooding gloom;

With Night and thick Darkness dwelt he ere was Mirth Or Anguish or Sound until Time came and doom.

Then to Night, his dark daughter, by Gloom, from him

sprung,

Were Æther's vast void and the Joy-giver born,

Day, ocean of soft light, whose billows among

Rose the round laughing Earth to know Eve and fresh

Morn;

To her grassy bosom did mighty ones cling,

The Mountains, her children, and Heaven bent o'er

Her beauty and round her his vast arms would fling,

And to him, the Terrors, the Titans she bore.

ANTISTROPHE I

Heaven gazed on his offspring and feared them, the

strong,

The monstrous, the curbless, the fiery Earth powers:

In Earth's womb deep-dungeoned, they raged groaning

long,

Till Time leapt to light and grasped rule with the Hours;

And Heaven resigned to his youngest his sway,

And Kronos kept watch on his brethren's wild might,

That evermore paled with their fierce roar the day

And flushed with their fire-breaths the starred gloom of

Night;

Then of foam of the blue sea that fairness was born

Beyond fairness, the mother of smiles and wild tears,

April hopes, hot desires, wan despairs smit by scorn,
Aphrodite the subtle, the rose of the years;

Of the soft wool-white tread of the queen of all wiles,

The violet, the sweet thyme, the amaranth came,

And she laughed to the Gods and the Earth, and beguiles

Immortals she flushes with fever and flame.

STROPHE 2

And Ocean had offspring innumerous, the waves,
Leapers, playful in sunshine, that rage to the breath
Of the roar of the winds and the storms, and sea-caves
Saw us the white nymphs laugh to life free from death,

And one, Heaven's white daughter, the just, oh, how

fair!

The light-dealing Themis, Iapetos wed,

And to him did the well-loved a mighty one bear,

Prometheus, by whom the far future is read.

Then the Great Gods, the Bright Ones, were born unto

Time,

By Earth, the all-fruitful, and Zeus, God of Gods,

In hand-force and brain-might, all matchless, sublime,

Whose awful brow blessing or woe to man nods.

ANTISTROPHE 2

And Time, who had rule from his ancient Sire torn,

Feared Atê should make that he dealt out, his own,

Devouring his offspring, the young to him born,

Till, for Zeus, Earth's dark guile fed his fierce maw with

stone,

And his Sire's doom was his; from Olympus were hurled

The forked bolts of Zeus and, in thunders, his shout;

With him Strength and Force paled with horror the

world,

On his foes, Empire and Victory heaped ruin and rout.

But yet the fierce Titans' wild might had raged still,

Fell, horrible, endless, had not Forethought given

To him Rule and Conquest. Boast Zeus as he will,

To Prometheus he owes calm and throned hours in

heaven,

Oh, wise are the sage who, cool-brained, grasp success !

Oh, where sits the throned not a tyrant in hate!

Will the High One of Heaven his throner caress,

Or senseless, ungrateful, make misery his fate?

MAN, prostrate on the earth

Oh, Sun-God, pierce me not with serpent stings!

Lo, in the dust, I grovel and beseech

Thy mercy! Thou, O Frost-God of the night,

Fix not thy fangs upon this shrinking flesh

And wake me howling! and thou, Hunger-God,

Gnaw me not in thine anger! I will leap

On the fleet deer and rend it limb from limb

To glut thee, or, if it, through fleetness, 'scape,

To satisfy thy cries, the shaggy strength

Of the huge bear I'll grapple, claw to claw

And tooth to tooth fierce rending. O ye Powers,

Ye that with racking aches torment me sore,

See how I crouch to you and grip the earth

Prostrate with wondering worship, I your slave.