Classic and Contemporary Poetry
PROMETHEUS, by JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE Poet's Biography First Line: Blacken thy heavens, jove Last Line: As I! Subject(s): Caucasus (mountains); Prometheus; Russia; Caucasia (mountains); Soviet Union; Russians | ||||||||
BLACKEN thy heavens, Jove, With thunder-clouds, And exercise thee, like a boy Who thistles crops, With smiting oaks and mountain-tops! Yet must thou leave me standing My own firm Earth; Must leave my cottage, which thou didst not build, And my warm hearth, Whose cheerful glow Thou enviest me. I know naught more pitiful Under the sun than you, Gods! Ye nourish scantily, With altar-taxes And with cold lip-service, This your majesty; -- Would perish, were not Children and beggars Credulous fools. When I was a child, And knew not whence or whither, I would turn my wildered eye To the sun, as if up yonder were An ear to hear to my complaining, -- A heart, like mine, On the oppressed to feel compassion. Who helped me, When I braved the Titans' insolence? Who rescued me from death, From slavery? Hast thou not all thyself accomplished, Holy-glowing heart? And, glowing young and good, Most ignorantly thanked The slumberer above there? I honor thee? For what? Hast thou the miseries lightened Of the down-trodden? Hast thou the tears ever banished From the afflicted? Have I not to manhood been moulded By omnipotent Time, And by Fate everlasting, -- My lords and thine? Dreamedst thou ever I should grow weary of living, And fly to the desert, Since not all our Pretty dream-buds ripen? Here sit I, fashion men In mine own image, -- A race to be like me, To weep and to suffer, To be happy and to enjoy themselves, -- All careless of thee too, As I! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...OXOTA: A SHORT RUSSIAN NOVEL: CHAPTER 259 by LYN HEJINIAN A FOREIGN COUNTRY by JOSEPHINE MILES THE DIAMOND PERSONA by NORMAN DUBIE IN MEMORIAM: 1933 (7. RUSSIA: ANNO 1905) by CHARLES REZNIKOFF TAKE A LETTER TO DMITRI SHOSTAKOVITCH by CARL SANDBURG READING THE RUSSIANS by RUTH STONE THE SOVIET CIRCUS VISITS HAVANA, 1969 by VIRGIL SUAREZ A PROBLEM IN AESTHETICS by KAREN SWENSON A SONG FROM THE COPTIC by JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE FAUST: SCENE 1. PROLOGUE IN HEAVEN by JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE |
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