Time: Midsummer (from Sunset till Night)
Time: The Cave of Prometheus
A VOICE
Without a break,
At dawn and before night,
Twice every day
The coloured light has come;
And night and morning songs are sung
That even when they’re silent we can hear,
For the words drive about the air
Like fruit-tree blossoms on a windy day.
ANOTHER VOICE
The evening light begins to ebb –
Moves back a space – another space –
Drawn like the trailing wings of a great bird.
ANOTHER VOICE
And the Storyteller, breaking from his song,
Follows the light so quickly that his feet
Trample the flying edges of the light.
STORYTELLER
Prometheus, come.
A VOICE
Prometheus, let him go.
ANOTHER VOICE
Prometheus, rest.
ANOTHER VOICE
Can you keep pace with him
Who makes the pigeon slow,
Who is so lithe and fine
He slips between the strands of the wind?
How can you keep his tracks
When jagged rocks and stones
Bow down to let him go
Over their smooth backs,
And brambles as he passes sheath their thorns?
ANOTHER VOICE
Yet heedlessly, laboriously
He makes his way towards the diminishing light.
ANOTHER VOICE
He is alone; the Storyteller’s gone.
ANOTHER VOICE
Or lost to view
Where there beyond
The light slips down
Between the world and sky.
ANOTHER VOICE
I hear Prometheus cry;
The light grows dull;
The wan green sky
Is smudged with scarlet flakes.
ANOTHER VOICE
The light is dying, and its trembling shakes
The mounds and the bushes;
The damp is curling round
Like shreds of wool.
ANOTHER VOICE
The stars to-night are little pale frail stars
That shiver and draw back into the sky.
CHORUS OF VOICES
Though the Summer night is short
The hours go slowly by;
As slow as the dew falls
The hours pass by;
Even the short Summer night
Goes slowly by.
End of Part II
