PROMETHEUS.

COVER thy spacious heavens, Zeus,
With clouds of mist
And, like the boy who lops
The thistles’ heads,
Disport with oaks and mountain-peaks; Yet thou must leave
My earth still standing;
My cottage too, which was not rais’d by thee;
Leave me my hearth,
Whose kindly glow
By thee is envied.

I know naught poorer
Under the sun than ye gods!
Ye nourish painfully,
With sacrifices
And votive prayers,
Your majesty;
Ye would e’en starve
If children and beggars
Were not trusting fools.
While yet a child And ignorant of life

I turn’d my wandering gaze
Up tow’rd the sun, as if with him
There were an ear to hear my wailings,
A heart like mine
To feel compassion for distress.

Who help’d me Against the Titans’ insolence?
Who rescued me from certain death,
From slavery?
Didst thou not do all this thyself,
My sacred glowing heart?
And glowedst, young and good,
Deceiv’d with grateful thanks,
To yonder slumbering one?

I honor thee! and why?
Hast thou e’er lighten’d the sorrows
Of the heavy-laden?
Hast thou e’er dried up the tears
Of the anguish-stricken? 
Was I not fashion’d to be a man
By omnipotent Time
And by eternal Fate,
Masters of me and thee?

Didst thou e’er fancy
That life I should learn to hate
And fly to deserts,
Because not all
My blossoming dreams grew ripe?
Here sit I, forming mortals
After my image;
A race resembling me,
To suffer, to weep,
To enjoy, to be glad,
And thee to scorn
As I!

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe