Prometheus, or the Poet’s Forethought Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Of Prometheus, how undaunted
         On Olympus' shining bastions
His audacious foot he planted,
Myths are told and songs are chanted,
         Full of promptings and suggestions.

Beautiful is the tradition
         Of that flight through heavenly portals,
The old classic superstition
Of the theft and the transmission
         Of the fire of the Immortals!

First the deed of noble daring,
         Born of heavenward aspiration,
Then the fire with mortals sharing,
Then the vulture,—the despairing
         Cry of pain on crags Caucasian.

All is but a symbol painted
         Of the Poet, Prophet, Seer;
Only those are crowned and sainted
Who with grief have been acquainted,
         Making nations nobler, freer.

In their feverish exultations,
         In their triumph and their yearning,
In their passionate pulsations,
In their words among the nations,
         The Promethean fire is burning.