PROMETHEUS: 
How fair these airborn shapes! and yet I feel
Most vain all hope but love; and thou art far,
Asia! who, when my being overflowed,
Wert like a golden chalice to bright wine 810
Which else had sunk into the thirsty dust. 
All things are still:  alas! how heavily
This quiet morning weighs upon my heart;
Though I should dream I could even sleep with grief
If slumber were denied not.  I would fain 815
Be what it is my destiny to be,
The saviour and the strength of suffering man,
Or sink into the original gulf of things: 
There is no agony, and no solace left;
Earth can console, Heaven can torment no more. 820

PANTHEA: 
Hast thou forgotten one who watches thee
The cold dark night, and never sleeps but when
The shadow of thy spirit falls on her?

PROMETHEUS: 
I said all hope was vain but love:  thou lovest.

PANTHEA: 
Deeply in truth; but the eastern star looks white, 825
And Asia waits in that far Indian vale,
The scene of her sad exile; rugged once
And desolate and frozen, like this ravine;
But now invested with fair flowers and herbs,
And haunted by sweet airs and sounds, which flow 830
Among the woods and waters, from the aether
Of her transforming presence, which would fade
If it were mingled not with thine.  Farewell!

END OF ACT 1.

ACT 2.

SCENE 2.1: 
MORNING. 
A LOVELY VALE IN THE INDIAN CAUCASUS. 
ASIA, ALONE.

ASIA: 
From all the blasts of heaven thou hast descended: 
Yes, like a spirit, like a thought, which makes
Unwonted tears throng to the horny eyes,
And beatings haunt the desolated heart,
Which should have learnt repose:  thou hast descended 5
Cradled in tempests; thou dost wake, O Spring! 
O child of many winds!  As suddenly
Thou comest as the memory of a dream,
Which now is sad because it hath been sweet;
Like genius, or like joy which riseth up 10
As from the earth, clothing with golden clouds
The desert of our life. 
This is the season, this the day, the hour;
At sunrise thou shouldst come, sweet sister mine,
Too long desired, too long delaying, come! 15
How like death-worms the wingless moments crawl! 
The point of one white star is quivering still
Deep in the orange light of widening morn
Beyond the purple mountains:  through a chasm
Of wind-divided mist the darker lake 20
Reflects it:  now it wanes:  it gleams again
As the waves fade, and as the burning threads
Of woven cloud unravel in pale air: 
’Tis lost! and through yon peaks of cloud-like snow
The roseate sunlight quivers:  hear I not 25
The Aeolian music of her sea-green plumes
Winnowing the crimson dawn?