PROMETHEUS

CARGOES

QUINQUIREME of Nineveh from distant Ophir

Rowing home to haven in sunny Palestine,

With a cargo of ivory.

And apes and peacocks,

Sandalwood, cedarwood, and sweet white wine.

Stately Spanish galleon coming from the Isthmus,
Dipping through the Tropics by the palm-green

shores,

With a cargo of diamonds,
Emeralds, amethysts,
Topazes, and cinnamon, and gold moidores. 10

Dirty British coaster with a salt-caked smoke stack,

Butting through the Channel in the mad March days,

With a cargo of Tyne coal,

Road-rails, pig-lead,

Firewood, iron-ware, and cheap tin trays.

JOHN MASEFIELD

PROMETHEUS
ALL day beneath the bleak indifferent skies,
Broken and blind, a shivering bag of bones,
He trudges over icy paving-stones
And Matches! Matches! Matches! Matches! cries.
And now beneath the dismal dripping night 20
And shadowed by a deeper night he stands—
And yet he holds within his palsied hands
Quick fire enough to set his world alight.
WILFRID GIBSON