WHEN PROMETHEUS STOLE THE FLAME.

When Prometheus stole the flame,

Did he know what with it came?

Did he look afar and see

All the blessings that would be?

Could he view the gentle gloam

Of the fireside of a home?

Or the centre-table's blaze,

Turning evenings into days,

Where, encamped with quiet zest,

Happy children toil and rest?

Did he view the parlor's gleam,

Or the‘ wildering palace dream?

See the torch's floating glare

Burn its way through walls of air;

Or, through under-regions trace

Earth's remotest hiding-place?

Did he see the flags of steam

O'er the cities flash and gleam?

To his vision, like a star,

Did the light-house gleam afar,

Which another eye should be

To the traveller of the sea?

If Prometheus, tortured — bound —

Knew the blessings man had found,

Then his sufferings must have been

Soothed by blessings from within.

When Prometheus stole the flame,

Did he know what with it came?

Did he see the fire up-steal,

Rise, and take its midnight meal?

Did he view the palace wall

Stumble‘ mid the smoke and fall?

Did he see some cherished home

Feed a fiery ocean's foam?

Did he hear the war-alarms

Of a nation called to arms,

And behold men, in their ire,

Murdering men with bolts of fire?

Did some miscreant cross his sight,

Bent on booty or on spite,

Stealing steps into the dark,

With the incendiary spark?

Did there, faint and haggard, rise

Ghosts before his startled eyes,

Godly men of scathless name,

Felled for fuel to the flame;

In a short-lived earthly hell

Thrown, for voicing heaven too well?

If he knew that glittering thing

Would to Earth such curses bring,

Then his sufferings may have been

Edged with poison from within.