[Gregory Dowling]

Prometheus Unbound

Still fettered, still unconquered, still in pain,
Bold in his hope and steadfast in his right,
The Friend of Man on the Caucasian height
Saw one vast flash to northward blast the plain.
As Hermes, swooping down, struck off the chain
And raised him, smiling, in that dazzling light,
"Does the old tyrant, then, repent his spite,"
He asked, "or has Zeus ceased at last to reign?"

"His wisdom is not mocked," the god replied,
"Nor alters nor repeals the great decree.
These are his words: 'Go, set the Titan free;
And let his torment be to wander wide
The ashes of mankind from sea to sea,
Judging that theft of fire from which they died.'"

What we might call the anti-Shelley version of the myth.

One of my reasons for starting this thread is to ask the question, "Why isn't there a full collected edition of Hope's works?" He died 14 years ago. It's easy enough to find the Collected Poems that came out in 1972, and the Carcanet Selected Poems of 1986, edited by Ruth Morse. But there were five new books of poetry after 1972, none of them easily available - at least, in Europe. The only edition that Amazon offers of one of them, A Book of Answers, comes at the modest price of £3000 (three thousand pounds).

Does anyone Down Under have any information on this? Does Australia have anything like the equivalent of the Library of America?