Prometheus. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832). Asiatic Russia: Caucasus, the Mountains. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. 1876-79. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes. Russia: Vol. XX

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Russia: Vol. XX. 1876–79.

Asiatic Russia: Caucasus, the Mountains

Prometheus

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832)


Translated by J. S. Dwight BLACKEN thy heavens, Jove,
With thunder-clouds,
And exercise thee, like a boy
Who thistles crops,
With smiting oaks and mountain-tops!	5
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	10
Thou enviest me.

I know naught more pitiful
Under the sun than you, Gods!
Ye nourish scantily,
With altar-taxes	15
And with cold lip-service,
This your majesty;—
Would perish, were not
Children and beggars
Credulous fools.	20

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,—	25
A heart, like mine,
On the oppressed to feel compassion.

Who helped me,
When I braved the Titans’ insolence?
Who rescued me from death,	30
From slavery?
Hast thou not all thyself accomplished,
Holy-glowing heart?
And, glowing young and good,
Most ignorantly thanked	35
The slumberer above there?

I honor thee? For what?
Hast thou the miseries lightened
Of the down-trodden?
Hast thou the tears ever banished	40
From the afflicted?
Have I not to manhood been moulded
By omnipotent Time,
And by Fate everlasting,—
My lords and thine?	45

Dreamedst thou ever
I should grow weary of living,
And fly to the desert,
Since not all our
Pretty dream-buds ripen?	50
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,—	55
All careless of thee too,
As I!