Okay, if you haven't read Prometheus Unbound there is something wrong with the world. Here's a section of Prometheus's dialogue, from very close to the beginning. He is addressing God, who is not visibly present.
The crawling glaciers pierce me with the spears of their moon-freezing crystals, the bright chains eat with their burning cold into my bones. Heaven's winged hound, polluting from thy lips his beak in poison not his own, tears up my heart; and shapeless sights come wandering by, the ghastly people of the realm of dream, mocking me: and the Earthquake-fiends are charged to wrench the rivets from my quivering wounds when the rocks split and close again behind: while from their loud abysses howling throng the genii of the storm, urging the rage of whirlwind, and afflict me with keen hail. And yet to me welcome is day and night.
(There should be an accent in winged for the scansion, but I have no idea how to make that display.)
That passage was selected from the play by putting my finger down at random.
Or from his partial translation of Goethe's Faust, and this one was not at random because it's one of my favorite passages:
Mephistopheles (to Faustus): Cling tightly to the old ribs of the crag. Beware! for if with them thou warrest in their fierce flight towards the wilderness their breath will sweep thee into dust, and drag thy body to a grave in the abyss. A cloud thickens the night. Hark! How the tempest crashes through the forest! The owls fly out in strange affright; the columns of the evergreen palaces are split and shattered; the roots creak, and stretch, and groan; and ruinously overthrown, the trunks are crushed and shattered by the fierce blast's unconquerable stress. Over each other crack and crash they all in terrible and intertangled fall: and through the ruins of the shaken mountain the airs hiss and howl-- it is not the voice of the fountain, nor the wolf in his midnight prowl. Dost thou not hear? Strange accents are ringing aloft, afar, anear? The witches are singing!
Sorry to totally spam your journal with Shelley, but I hope I've made my point at least somewhat.
no subject
The crawling glaciers pierce me with the spears
of their moon-freezing crystals, the bright chains
eat with their burning cold into my bones.
Heaven's winged hound, polluting from thy lips
his beak in poison not his own, tears up
my heart; and shapeless sights come wandering by,
the ghastly people of the realm of dream,
mocking me: and the Earthquake-fiends are charged
to wrench the rivets from my quivering wounds
when the rocks split and close again behind:
while from their loud abysses howling throng
the genii of the storm, urging the rage
of whirlwind, and afflict me with keen hail.
And yet to me welcome is day and night.
(There should be an accent in winged for the scansion, but I have no idea how to make that display.)
That passage was selected from the play by putting my finger down at random.
Or from his partial translation of Goethe's Faust, and this one was not at random because it's one of my favorite passages:
Mephistopheles (to Faustus):
Cling tightly to the old ribs of the crag.
Beware! for if with them thou warrest
in their fierce flight towards the wilderness
their breath will sweep thee into dust, and drag
thy body to a grave in the abyss.
A cloud thickens the night.
Hark! How the tempest crashes through the forest!
The owls fly out in strange affright;
the columns of the evergreen palaces
are split and shattered;
the roots creak, and stretch, and groan;
and ruinously overthrown,
the trunks are crushed and shattered
by the fierce blast's unconquerable stress.
Over each other crack and crash they all
in terrible and intertangled fall:
and through the ruins of the shaken mountain
the airs hiss and howl--
it is not the voice of the fountain,
nor the wolf in his midnight prowl.
Dost thou not hear?
Strange accents are ringing
aloft, afar, anear?
The witches are singing!
Sorry to totally spam your journal with Shelley, but I hope I've made my point at least somewhat.