BOOK I.
Deep in the shady sadness of a vale
Far sunken from the healthy breath of morn,
Far from the fiery noon, and eve's one star, Sat gray-hair'd Saturn, quiet as a stone,
Forest on forest hung about his head Still as the silence round about his lair;
Robs not one light seed from the feather'd grass, Like cloud on cloud. No stir of air was there,
Not so much life as on a summer's day
A stream went voiceless by, still deadened more But where the dead leaf fell, there did it rest. 10
By reason of his fallen divinity
Spreading a shade: the Naiad 'mid her reeds
Along the margin-sand large foot-marks went, No further than to where his feet had stray'd,
His old right hand lay nerveless, listless, dead, And slept there since. Upon the sodden ground
While his bow'd head seem'd list'ning to the Earth, 20 Unsceptred; and his realmless eyes were closed;
His ancient mother, for some comfort yet.
It seem'd no force could wake him from his place; But there came one, who with a kindred hand
With reverence, though to one who knew it not. Touch'd his wide shoulders, after bending low
She was a Goddess of the infant world;
Achilles by the hair and bent his neck; By her in stature the tall Amazon
Had stood a pigmy's height: she would have ta'en
Pedestal'd haply in a palace court, Or with a finger stay'd Ixion's wheel. 30
Her face was large as that of Memphian sphinx,
Sorrow more beautiful than Beauty's self. When sages look'd to Egypt for their lore.
But oh! how unlike marble was that face:
How beautiful, if sorrow had not made
Had spent their malice, and the sullen rear 40 There was a listening fear in her regard,
As if calamity had but begun;
As if the vanward clouds of evil days
Was with its stored thunder labouring up.
The other upon Saturn's bended neck One hand she press'd upon that aching spot
Where beats the human heart, as if just there,
Though an immortal, she felt cruel pain:
She laid, and to the level of his ear
To that large utterance of the early Gods! Leaning with parted lips, some words she spake
In solemn tenour and deep organ tone:
Some mourning words, which in our feeble tongue
Would come in these like accents; O how frail 50
Knows thee not, thus afflicted, for a God; "Saturn, look up!--though wherefore, poor old King?
I have no comfort for thee, no not one:
I cannot say, 'O wherefore sleepest thou?'
For heaven is parted from thee, and the earth
And ocean too, with all its solemn noise,
Scorches and burns our once serene domain. Has from thy sceptre pass'd; and all the air
Is emptied of thine hoary majesty.
Thy thunder, conscious of the new command, 60
Rumbles reluctant o'er our fallen house;
And thy sharp lightning in unpractised hands
Why should I ope thy melancholy eyes? 70 O aching time! O moments big as years!
All as ye pass swell out the monstrous truth,
And press it so upon our weary griefs
That unbelief has not a space to breathe.
Saturn, sleep on:--O thoughtless, why did I
Thus violate thy slumbrous solitude?
Saturn, sleep on! while at thy feet I weep."
As when, upon a tranced summer-night,
Those green-rob'd senators of mighty woods,
Tall oaks, branch-charmed by the earnest stars, Dream, and so dream all night without a stir,
Which comes upon the silence, and dies off, Save from one gradual solitary gust
As if the ebbing air had but one wave;
She touch'd her fair large forehead to the ground, 80 So came these words and went; the while in tears
Just where her falling hair might be outspread
And still these two were postured motionless, A soft and silken mat for Saturn's feet.
One moon, with alteration slow, had shed
Her silver seasons four upon the night,
Until at length old Saturn lifted up Like natural sculpture in cathedral cavern;
The frozen God still couchant on the earth,
And the sad Goddess weeping at his feet:
As with a palsied tongue, and while his beard His faded eyes, and saw his kingdom gone, 90
And all the gloom and sorrow of the place,
And that fair kneeling Goddess; and then spake,
Shook horrid with such aspen-malady:
Is Saturn's; tell me, if thou hear'st the voice "O tender spouse of gold Hyperion,
Thea, I feel thee ere I see thy face;
Look up, and let me see our doom in it;
Look up, and tell me if this feeble shape
Of Saturn; tell me, if this wrinkling brow, 100
But it is so; and I am smother'd up, Naked and bare of its great diadem,
Peers like the front of Saturn. Who had power
To make me desolate? whence came the strength?
How was it nurtur'd to such bursting forth,
While Fate seem'd strangled in my nervous grasp?
Doth ease its heart of love in.--I am gone And buried from all godlike exercise
Of influence benign on planets pale,
Of admonitions to the winds and seas,
Of peaceful sway above man's harvesting, 110
And all those acts which Deity supreme
Away from my own bosom: I have left
Space region'd with life-air; and barren void; My strong identity, my real self,
Somewhere between the throne, and where I sit
Here on this spot of earth. Search, Thea, search!
Open thine eyes eterne, and sphere them round
Upon all space: space starr'd, and lorn of light;
Yes, there must be a golden victory; Spaces of fire, and all the yawn of hell.-- 120
Search, Thea, search! and tell me, if thou seest
A certain shape or shadow, making way
With wings or chariot fierce to repossess
A heaven he lost erewhile: it must--it must
Be of ripe progress--Saturn must be King.
Of the sky-children; I will give command: There must be Gods thrown down, and trumpets blown
Of triumph calm, and hymns of festival
Upon the gold clouds metropolitan,
Voices of soft proclaim, and silver stir 130
Of strings in hollow shells; and there shall be
Beautiful things made new, for the surprise
Thea! Thea! Thea! where is Saturn?"
This passion lifted him upon his feet,
And made his hands to struggle in the air,
His Druid locks to shake and ooze with sweat, His eyes to fever out, his voice to cease.
A little time, and then again he snatch'd 140 He stood, and heard not Thea's sobbing deep;
Utterance thus.--"But cannot I create?
To overbear and crumble this to nought? Cannot I form? Cannot I fashion forth
Another world, another universe,
Where is another chaos? Where?"--That word
As thus she quick-voic'd spake, yet full of awe. Found way unto Olympus, and made quake
The rebel three.--Thea was startled up,
And in her bearing was a sort of hope,
"This cheers our fallen house: come to our friends, 150 O Saturn! come away, and give them heart;
Thus brief; then with beseeching eyes she went I know the covert, for thence came I hither."
He follow'd, and she turn'd to lead the way With backward footing through the shade a space:
Which eagles cleave upmounting from their nest.
Through aged boughs, that yielded like the mist
Meanwhile in other realms big tears were shed, More sorrow like to this, and such like woe,
Too huge for mortal tongue or pen of scribe: 160 The Titans fierce, self-hid, or prison-bound,
Groan'd for the old allegiance once more,
His sov'reignty, and rule, and majesty;-- And listen'd in sharp pain for Saturn's voice.
But one of the whole mammoth-brood still kept
Blazing Hyperion on his orbed fire
Fright and perplex, so also shuddered he-- 170 Still sat, still snuff'd the incense, teeming up
From man to the sun's God; yet unsecure:
For as among us mortals omens drear
Not at dog's howl, or gloom-bird's hated screech,
Oft made Hyperion ache. His palace bright Or the familiar visiting of one
Upon the first toll of his passing-bell,
Or prophesyings of the midnight lamp;
But horrors, portion'd to a giant nerve,
Bastion'd with pyramids of glowing gold,
Flush'd angerly: while sometimes eagle's wings, And touch'd with shade of bronzed obelisks,
Glar'd a blood-red through all its thousand courts,
Arches, and domes, and fiery galleries; 180
And all its curtains of Aurorian clouds
Instead of sweets, his ample palate took Unseen before by Gods or wondering men,
Darken'd the place; and neighing steeds were heard,
Not heard before by Gods or wondering men.
Also, when he would taste the spicy wreaths
Of incense, breath'd aloft from sacred hills,
He pac'd away the pleasant hours of ease Savour of poisonous brass and metal sick:
And so, when harbour'd in the sleepy west, 190
After the full completion of fair day,--
For rest divine upon exalted couch
And slumber in the arms of melody,
With stride colossal, on from hall to hall;
Even now, while Saturn, rous'd from icy trance, While far within each aisle and deep recess,
His winged minions in close clusters stood,
Amaz'd and full of fear; like anxious men
Who on wide plains gather in panting troops,
When earthquakes jar their battlements and towers. 200
Went step for step with Thea through the woods,
In fragrance soft, and coolness to the eye, 210 Hyperion, leaving twilight in the rear,
Came slope upon the threshold of the west;
Then, as was wont, his palace-door flew ope
In smoothest silence, save what solemn tubes,
Blown by the serious Zephyrs, gave of sweet
And wandering sounds, slow-breathed melodies;
And like a rose in vermeil tint and shape,
Stood full blown, for the God to enter in.
That inlet to severe magnificence
He enter'd, but he enter'd full of wrath;
His flaming robes stream'd out beyond his heels, And gave a roar, as if of earthly fire,
And made their dove-wings tremble. On he flared, That scar'd away the meek ethereal Hours
Through bowers of fragrant and enwreathed light, From stately nave to nave, from vault to vault,
Until he reach'd the great main cupola; And diamond-paved lustrous long arcades, 220
Jarr'd his own golden region; and before There standing fierce beneath, he stampt his foot,
And from the basements deep to the high towers
To this result: "O dreams of day and night! The quavering thunder thereupon had ceas'd,
His voice leapt out, despite of godlike curb,
O monstrous forms! O effigies of pain!
Why do I know ye? why have I seen ye? why O spectres busy in a cold, cold gloom!
O lank-eared Phantoms of black-weeded pools! 230
Is my eternal essence thus distraught
This calm luxuriance of blissful light, To see and to behold these horrors new?
Saturn is fallen, am I too to fall?
Am I to leave this haven of my rest,
This cradle of my glory, this soft clime,
The blaze, the splendor, and the symmetry, These crystalline pavilions, and pure fanes,
Of all my lucent empire? It is left
Deserted, void, nor any haunt of mine. 240
I cannot see--but darkness, death and darkness.
I will advance a terrible right arm Even here, into my centre of repose,
The shady visions come to domineer,
Insult, and blind, and stifle up my pomp.--
Fall!--No, by Tellus and her briny robes!
Over the fiery frontier of my realms
For as in theatres of crowded men Shall scare that infant thunderer, rebel Jove,
And bid old Saturn take his throne again."-- 250
He spake, and ceas'd, the while a heavier threat
Held struggle with his throat but came not forth;
At this, through all his bulk an agony Hubbub increases more they call out "Hush!"
So at Hyperion's words the Phantoms pale
Bestirr'd themselves, thrice horrible and cold;
And from the mirror'd level where he stood
A mist arose, as from a scummy marsh.
Before the dawn in season due should blush, Crept gradual, from the feet unto the crown, 260
Like a lithe serpent vast and muscular
Making slow way, with head and neck convuls'd
From over-strained might. Releas'd, he fled
To the eastern gates, and full six dewy hours
Spun round in sable curtaining of clouds; He breath'd fierce breath against the sleepy portals,
Clear'd them of heavy vapours, burst them wide
Suddenly on the ocean's chilly streams.
The planet orb of fire, whereon he rode
Each day from east to west the heavens through, 270
Not therefore veiled quite, blindfold, and hid,
Then living on the earth, with labouring thought But ever and anon the glancing spheres,
Circles, and arcs, and broad-belting colure,
Glow'd through, and wrought upon the muffling dark
Sweet-shaped lightnings from the nadir deep
Up to the zenith,--hieroglyphics old,
Which sages and keen-eyed astrologers
Won from the gaze of many centuries: 280
While still the dazzling globe maintain'd eclipse, Now lost, save what we find on remnants huge
Of stone, or marble swart; their import gone,
Their wisdom long since fled.--Two wings this orb
Possess'd for glory, two fair argent wings,
Ever exalted at the God's approach:
And now, from forth the gloom their plumes immense
Rose, one by one, till all outspreaded were;
Awaiting for Hyperion's command.
Open'd upon the dusk demesnes of night Fain would he have commanded, fain took throne 290
And bid the day begin, if but for change.
He might not:--No, though a primeval God:
The sacred seasons might not be disturb'd.
Therefore the operations of the dawn
Stay'd in their birth, even as here 'tis told.
Those silver wings expanded sisterly,
Eager to sail their orb; the porches wide
And the bright Titan, phrenzied with new woes,
"O brightest of my children dear, earth-born Unus'd to bend, by hard compulsion bent 300
His spirit to the sorrow of the time;
And all along a dismal rack of clouds,
Upon the boundaries of day and night,
He stretch'd himself in grief and radiance faint.
There as he lay, the Heaven with its stars
Look'd down on him with pity, and the voice
Of Coelus, from the universal space,
Thus whisper'd low and solemn in his ear.
And sky-engendered, Son of Mysteries 310
There is sad feud among ye, and rebellion All unrevealed even to the powers
Which met at thy creating; at whose joys
And palpitations sweet, and pleasures soft,
I, Coelus, wonder, how they came and whence;
And at the fruits thereof what shapes they be,
Distinct, and visible; symbols divine,
Manifestations of that beauteous life
Diffus'd unseen throughout eternal space:
Of these new-form'd art thou, oh brightest child!
Of these, thy brethren and the Goddesses! 320
Of son against his sire. I saw him fall,
Actions of rage and passion; even as I saw my first-born tumbled from his throne!
To me his arms were spread, to me his voice
Found way from forth the thunders round his head!
Pale wox I, and in vapours hid my face.
Art thou, too, near such doom? vague fear there is:
For I have seen my sons most unlike Gods.
Divine ye were created, and divine
In sad demeanour, solemn, undisturb'd, 330
Unruffled, like high Gods, ye liv'd and ruled:
Now I behold in you fear, hope, and wrath;
I see them, on the mortal world beneath,
For there thou wilt find Saturn, and his woes. In men who die.--This is the grief, O Son!
Sad sign of ruin, sudden dismay, and fall!
Yet do thou strive; as thou art capable,
As thou canst move about, an evident God;
And canst oppose to each malignant hour
Ethereal presence:--I am but a voice; 340
My life is but the life of winds and tides,
No more than winds and tides can I avail:--
But thou canst.--Be thou therefore in the van
Of circumstance; yea, seize the arrow's barb
Before the tense string murmur.--To the earth!
Meantime I will keep watch on thy bright sun,
And plung'd all noiseless into the deep night. And of thy seasons be a careful nurse."--
Ere half this region-whisper had come down,
Hyperion arose, and on the stars 350
Lifted his curved lids, and kept them wide
Until it ceas'd; and still he kept them wide:
And still they were the same bright, patient stars.
Then with a slow incline of his broad breast,
Like to a diver in the pearly seas,
Forward he stoop'd over the airy shore,
BOOK II.
Just at the self-same beat of Time's wide wings Hyperion slid into the rustled air,
Where Cybele and the bruised Titans mourn'd. And Saturn gain'd with Thea that sad place
Could glimmer on their tears; where their own groans It was a den where no insulting light
Of thunderous waterfalls and torrents hoarse, They felt, but heard not, for the solid roar
Crag jutting forth to crag, and rocks that seem'd 10 Pouring a constant bulk, uncertain where.
Ever as if just rising from a sleep,
And thus in thousand hugest phantasies Forehead to forehead held their monstrous horns;
Made a fit roofing to this nest of woe.
Stubborn'd with iron. All were not assembled: Instead of thrones, hard flint they sat upon,
Couches of rugged stone, and slaty ridge
Some chain'd in torture, and some wandering.
With many more, the brawniest in assault, Coeus, and Gyges, and Briareüs,
Typhon, and Dolor, and Porphyrion, 20
Were pent in regions of laborious breath;
Without a motion, save of their big hearts Dungeon'd in opaque element, to keep
Their clenched teeth still clench'd, and all their limbs
Lock'd up like veins of metal, crampt and screw'd;
Far from her moon had Phoebe wandered; 30 Heaving in pain, and horribly convuls'd
With sanguine feverous boiling gurge of pulse.
Mnemosyne was straying in the world;
And many else were free to roam abroad,
When the chill rain begins at shut of eve, But for the main, here found they covert drear.
Scarce images of life, one here, one there,
Lay vast and edgeways; like a dismal cirque
Of Druid stones, upon a forlorn moor,
Creüs was one; his ponderous iron mace In dull November, and their chancel vault,
The Heaven itself, is blinded throughout night.
Each one kept shroud, nor to his neighbour gave
Or word, or look, or action of despair. 40
Dead; and because the creature could not spit Lay by him, and a shatter'd rib of rock
Told of his rage, ere he thus sank and pined.
Iäpetus another; in his grasp,
A serpent's plashy neck; its barbed tongue
Squeez'd from the gorge, and all its uncurl'd length
Asia, born of most enormous Caf, Its poison in the eyes of conquering Jove.
Next Cottus: prone he lay, chin uppermost,
As though in pain; for still upon the flint 50
He ground severe his skull, with open mouth
And eyes at horrid working. Nearest him
By Oxus or in Ganges' sacred isles. 60 Who cost her mother Tellus keener pangs,
Though feminine, than any of her sons:
More thought than woe was in her dusky face,
For she was prophesying of her glory;
And in her wide imagination stood
Palm-shaded temples, and high rival fanes,
As grazing ox unworried in the meads; Even as Hope upon her anchor leans,
So leant she, not so fair, upon a tusk
Shed from the broadest of her elephants.
Above her, on a crag's uneasy shelve,
Upon his elbow rais'd, all prostrate else,
Shadow'd Enceladus; once tame and mild
Not far hence Atlas; and beside him prone Now tiger-passion'd, lion-thoughted, wroth,
He meditated, plotted, and even now
Was hurling mountains in that second war, 70
Not long delay'd, that scar'd the younger Gods
To hide themselves in forms of beast and bird.
Thick night confounds the pine-tops with the clouds: 80 Phorcus, the sire of Gorgons. Neighbour'd close
Oceanus, and Tethys, in whose lap
Sobb'd Clymene among her tangled hair.
In midst of all lay Themis, at the feet
Of Ops the queen all clouded round from sight;
No shape distinguishable, more than when
Their heads appear'd, and up their stature grew And many else whose names may not be told.
For when the Muse's wings are air-ward spread,
Who shall delay her flight? And she must chaunt
Of Saturn, and his guide, who now had climb'd
With damp and slippery footing from a depth
More horrid still. Above a sombre cliff
Of rage, of fear, anxiety, revenge, Till on the level height their steps found ease:
Then Thea spread abroad her trembling arms
Upon the precincts of this nest of pain, 90
And sidelong fix'd her eye on Saturn's face:
There saw she direst strife; the supreme God
At war with all the frailty of grief,
First onwards in, among the fallen tribe. 100 Remorse, spleen, hope, but most of all despair.
Against these plagues he strove in vain; for Fate
Had pour'd a mortal oil upon his head,
A disanointing poison: so that Thea,
Affrighted, kept her still, and let him pass
As with us mortal men, the laden heart Is persecuted more, and fever'd more,
Where other hearts are sick of the same bruise; When it is nighing to the mournful house
Felt faint, and would have sunk among the rest, So Saturn, as he walk'd into the midst,
But that he met Enceladus's eye,
Came like an inspiration; and he shouted, Whose mightiness, and awe of him, at once
"Titans, behold your God!" at which some groan'd; 110
And Ops, uplifting her black folded veil, Some started on their feet; some also shouted;
Some wept, some wail'd, all bow'd with reverence;
Show'd her pale cheeks, and all her forehead wan,
Among immortals when a God gives sign, Her eye-brows thin and jet, and hollow eyes.
There is a roaring in the bleak-grown pines
When Winter lifts his voice; there is a noise
With hushing finger, how he means to load
Which, when it ceases in this mountain'd world, His tongue with the full weight of utterless thought, 120
With thunder, and with music, and with pomp:
Such noise is like the roar of bleak-grown pines;
No other sound succeeds; but ceasing here,
Which is its own great judge and searcher out, 130 Among these fallen, Saturn's voice therefrom
Grew up like organ, that begins anew
Its strain, when other harmonies, stopt short,
Leave the dinn'd air vibrating silverly.
Thus grew it up--"Not in my own sad breast,
Low-ebb'd still hid it up in shallow gloom;-- Can I find reason why ye should be thus:
Not in the legends of the first of days,
Studied from that old spirit-leaved book
Which starry Uranus with finger bright
Sav'd from the shores of darkness, when the waves
And the which book ye know I ever kept
Each several one against the other three, For my firm-based footstool:--Ah, infirm!
Not there, nor in sign, symbol, or portent
Of element, earth, water, air, and fire,-- 140
At war, at peace, or inter-quarreling
One against one, or two, or three, or all
As fire with air loud warring when rain-floods
No, no-where can unriddle, though I search, 150 Drown both, and press them both against earth's face,
Where, finding sulphur, a quadruple wrath
Unhinges the poor world;--not in that strife,
Wherefrom I take strange lore, and read it deep,
Can I find reason why ye should be thus:
And pore on Nature's universal scroll
Even to swooning, why ye, Divinities,
What can I? Tell me, all ye brethren Gods, 160 The first-born of all shap'd and palpable Gods,
Should cower beneath what, in comparison,
Is untremendous might. Yet ye are here,
O'erwhelm'd, and spurn'd, and batter'd, ye are here!
O Titans, shall I say 'Arise!'--Ye groan:
Shall I say 'Crouch!'--Ye groan. What can I then?
O Heaven wide! O unseen parent dear!
How we can war, how engine our great wrath!
Which comes of thought and musing: give us help!" O speak your counsel now, for Saturn's ear
Is all a-hunger'd. Thou, Oceanus,
Ponderest high and deep; and in thy face
I see, astonied, that severe content
So ended Saturn; and the God of the Sea, Sophist and sage, from no Athenian grove,
Arose, with locks not oozy, and began, 170 But cogitation in his watery shades,
Caught infant-like from the far-foamed sands. In murmurs, which his first-endeavouring tongue
Writhe at defeat, and nurse your agonies! "O ye, whom wrath consumes! who, passion-stung,
Shut up your senses, stifle up your ears,
How ye, perforce, must be content to stoop: My voice is not a bellows unto ire.
Yet listen, ye who will, whilst I bring proof
And in the proof much comfort will I give,
Of thunder, or of Jove. Great Saturn, thou If ye will take that comfort in its truth. 180
We fall by course of Nature's law, not force
Hast sifted well the atom-universe;
And first, as thou wast not the first of powers, But for this reason, that thou art the King,
And only blind from sheer supremacy,
One avenue was shaded from thine eyes,
Through which I wandered to eternal truth.
Light, the first fruits of that intestine broil, So art thou not the last; it cannot be:
Thou art not the beginning nor the end. 190
From chaos and parental darkness came
That sullen ferment, which for wondrous ends
The Heavens and the Earth, were manifest: Was ripening in itself. The ripe hour came,
And with it light, and light, engendering
Upon its own producer, forthwith touch'd
The whole enormous matter into life.
Upon that very hour, our parentage,
And to envisage circumstance, all calm, Then thou first-born, and we the giant-race, 200
Found ourselves ruling new and beauteous realms.
Now comes the pain of truth, to whom 'tis pain;
O folly! for to bear all naked truths,
That is the top of sovereignty. Mark well!
And thousand other signs of purer life; As Heaven and Earth are fairer, fairer far
Than Chaos and blank Darkness, though once chiefs;
And as we show beyond that Heaven and Earth
In form and shape compact and beautiful,
In will, in action free, companionship, 210
So on our heels a fresh perfection treads,
And feedeth still, more comely than itself? A power more strong in beauty, born of us
And fated to excel us, as we pass
In glory that old Darkness: nor are we
Thereby more conquer'd, than by us the rule
Of shapeless Chaos. Say, doth the dull soil
Quarrel with the proud forests it hath fed,
Can it deny the chiefdom of green groves? 220
In right thereof; for 'tis the eternal law Or shall the tree be envious of the dove
Because it cooeth, and hath snowy wings
To wander wherewithal and find its joys?
We are such forest-trees, and our fair boughs
Have bred forth, not pale solitary doves,
But eagles golden-feather'd, who do tower
Above us in their beauty, and must reign
That first in beauty should be first in might:
That it enforc'd me to bid sad farewell Yea, by that law, another race may drive 230
Our conquerors to mourn as we do now.
Have ye beheld the young God of the Seas,
My dispossessor? Have ye seen his face?
Have ye beheld his chariot, foam'd along
By noble winged creatures he hath made?
I saw him on the calmed waters scud,
With such a glow of beauty in his eyes,
To all my empire: farewell sad I took,
Receive the truth, and let it be your balm." And hither came, to see how dolorous fate 240
Had wrought upon ye; and how I might best
Give consolation in this woe extreme.
Whether through poz'd conviction, or disdain, They guarded silence, when Oceanus
But so it was, none answer'd for a space, Left murmuring, what deepest thought can tell?
With hectic lips, and eyes up-looking mild, 250 Save one whom none regarded, Clymene;
And yet she answer'd not, only complain'd,
And all my knowledge is that joy is gone, Thus wording timidly among the fierce:
"O Father, I am here the simplest voice,
I would not bode of evil, if I thought And this thing woe crept in among our hearts,
There to remain for ever, as I fear:
So weak a creature could turn off the help
Of what I heard, and how it made me weep, 260 Which by just right should come of mighty Gods;
Yet let me tell my sorrow, let me tell
And know that we had parted from all hope.
I stood upon a shore, a pleasant shore,
Too full of joy and soft delicious warmth; Where a sweet clime was breathed from a land
Of fragrance, quietness, and trees, and flowers.
Full of calm joy it was, as I of grief;
So that I felt a movement in my heart
To chide, and to reproach that solitude
And with poor skill let pass into the breeze With songs of misery, music of our woes;
And sat me down, and took a mouthed shell 270
And murmur'd into it, and made melody--
O melody no more! for while I sang,
The dull shell's echo, from a bowery strand
With that new blissful golden melody. 280 Just opposite, an island of the sea,
There came enchantment with the shifting wind,
That did both drown and keep alive my ears.
I threw my shell away upon the sand,
And a wave fill'd it, as my sense was fill'd
A living death was in each gush of sounds,
To hover round my head, and make me sick Each family of rapturous hurried notes,
That fell, one after one, yet all at once,
Like pearl beads dropping sudden from their string:
And then another, then another strain,
Each like a dove leaving its olive perch,
With music wing'd instead of silent plumes,
I fled, it follow'd me, and cried 'Apollo!' Of joy and grief at once. Grief overcame,
And I was stopping up my frantic ears, 290
When, past all hindrance of my trembling hands,
A voice came sweeter, sweeter than all tune,
And still it cried, 'Apollo! young Apollo!
The morning-bright Apollo! young Apollo!'
Presumptuous, in thus venturing to be heard." O Father, and O Brethren, had ye felt
Those pains of mine; O Saturn, hadst thou felt,
Ye would not call this too indulged tongue
So far her voice flow'd on, like timorous brook 300 That, lingering along a pebbled coast,
And shudder'd; for the overwhelming voice Doth fear to meet the sea: but sea it met,
The ponderous syllables, like sullen waves Of huge Enceladus swallow'd it in wrath:
In the half-glutted hollows of reef-rocks,
He lean'd; not rising, from supreme contempt. Came booming thus, while still upon his arm
"Or shall we listen to the over-wise,
That rebel Jove's whole armoury were spent, Or to the over-foolish, Giant-Gods? 310
Not thunderbolt on thunderbolt, till all
Speak! roar! shout! yell! ye sleepy Titans all. Not world on world upon these shoulders piled,
Could agonize me more than baby-words
In midst of this dethronement horrible.
Thy scalding in the seas? What, have I rous'd 320 Do ye forget the blows, the buffets vile?
Are ye not smitten by a youngling arm?
Dost thou forget, sham Monarch of the Waves,
Wide glaring for revenge!"--As this he said, Your spleens with so few simple words as these?
O joy! for now I see ye are not lost:
O joy! for now I see a thousand eyes
He lifted up his stature vast, and stood,
And singe away the swollen clouds of Jove, 330 Still without intermission speaking thus:
"Now ye are flames, I'll tell you how to burn,
And purge the ether of our enemies;
How to feed fierce the crooked stings of fire,
The days of peace and slumberous calm are fled; Stifling that puny essence in its tent.
O let him feel the evil he hath done;
For though I scorn Oceanus's lore,
Much pain have I for more than loss of realms:
Those days, all innocent of scathing war,
That was before we knew the winged thing, When all the fair Existences of heaven
Came open-eyed to guess what we would speak:--
That was before our brows were taught to frown,
Before our lips knew else but solemn sounds; 340
Victory, might be lost, or might be won.
Hyperion, lo! his radiance is here!" And be ye mindful that Hyperion,
Our brightest brother, still is undisgraced--
All eyes were on Enceladus's face,
And they beheld, while still Hyperion's name Flew from his lips up to the vaulted rocks,
Not savage, for he saw full many a God 350 A pallid gleam across his features stern:
Wroth as himself. He look'd upon them all,
But splendider in Saturn's, whose hoar locks And in each face he saw a gleam of light,
Shone like the bubbling foam about a keel
When the prow sweeps into a midnight cove.
All the sad spaces of oblivion, In pale and silver silence they remain'd,
Till suddenly a splendour, like the morn,
Pervaded all the beetling gloomy steeps,
And all the everlasting cataracts, And every gulf, and every chasm old, 360
And every height, and every sullen depth,
Voiceless, or hoarse with loud tormented streams:
His bright feet touch'd, and there he stay'd to view And all the headlong torrents far and near,
Mantled before in darkness and huge shade,
Now saw the light and made it terrible.
It was Hyperion:--a granite peak
In midst of his own brightness, like the bulk The misery his brilliance had betray'd
To the most hateful seeing of itself. 370
Golden his hair of short Numidian curl,
Regal his shape majestic, a vast shade
He press'd together, and in silence stood. Of Memnon's image at the set of sun
To one who travels from the dusking East:
Sighs, too, as mournful as that Memnon's harp
He utter'd, while his hands contemplative
Despondence seiz'd again the fallen Gods
Uprose Iäpetus, and Creüs too, At sight of the dejected King of Day, 380
And many hid their faces from the light:
But fierce Enceladus sent forth his eyes
Among the brotherhood; and, at their glare,
And Phorcus, sea-born, and together strode
To where he towered on his eminence.
Gave from their hollow throats the name of "Saturn!" There those four shouted forth old Saturn's name;
Hyperion from the peak loud answered, "Saturn!"
Saturn sat near the Mother of the Gods,
In whose face was no joy, though all the Gods 390
BOOK III.
Thus in alternate uproar and sad peace, Amazed were those Titans utterly.
O leave them, Muse! O leave them to their woes; For thou art weak to sing such tumults dire:
A solitary sorrow best befits
Leave them, O Muse! for thou anon wilt find Thy lips, and antheming a lonely grief.
Many a fallen old Divinity
Wandering in vain about bewildered shores.
In aid soft warble from the Dorian flute; Meantime touch piously the Delphic harp, 10
And not a wind of heaven but will breathe
For lo! 'tis for the Father of all verse.
Let the red wine within the goblet boil, Flush every thing that hath a vermeil hue,
Let the rose glow intense and warm the air,
And let the clouds of even and of morn
Float in voluptuous fleeces o'er the hills;
Blush keenly, as with some warm kiss surpris'd. Cold as a bubbling well; let faint-lipp'd shells,
On sands, or in great deeps, vermilion turn 20
Through all their labyrinths; and let the maid
Chief isle of the embowered Cyclades,
Apollo is once more the golden theme! Rejoice, O Delos, with thine olives green,
And poplars, and lawn-shading palms, and beech,
In which the Zephyr breathes the loudest song,
And hazels thick, dark-stemm'd beneath the shade:
Where was he, when the Giant of the Sun
Full ankle-deep in lilies of the vale. Stood bright, amid the sorrow of his peers? 30
Together had he left his mother fair
And his twin-sister sleeping in their bower,
And in the morning twilight wandered forth
Beside the osiers of a rivulet,
The nightingale had ceas'd, and a few stars
Went trickling down the golden bow he held. Were lingering in the heavens, while the thrush
Began calm-throated. Throughout all the isle
There was no covert, no retired cave
Unhaunted by the murmurous noise of waves, 40
Though scarcely heard in many a green recess.
He listen'd, and he wept, and his bright tears
"How cam'st thou over the unfooted sea? 50 Thus with half-shut suffused eyes he stood,
While from beneath some cumbrous boughs hard by
With solemn step an awful Goddess came,
And there was purport in her looks for him,
Which he with eager guess began to read
Perplex'd, the while melodiously he said:
Or hath that antique mien and robed form
Goddess! I have beheld those eyes before, Mov'd in these vales invisible till now?
Sure I have heard those vestments sweeping o'er
The fallen leaves, when I have sat alone
In cool mid-forest. Surely I have traced
The rustle of those ample skirts about
These grassy solitudes, and seen the flowers
Lift up their heads, as still the whisper pass'd.
Of such new tuneful wonder. Is't not strange And their eternal calm, and all that face, 60
Or I have dream'd."--"Yes," said the supreme shape,
"Thou hast dream'd of me; and awaking up
Didst find a lyre all golden by thy side,
Whose strings touch'd by thy fingers, all the vast
Unwearied ear of the whole universe
Listen'd in pain and pleasure at the birth
Could bend that bow heroic to all times. That thou shouldst weep, so gifted? Tell me, youth,
What sorrow thou canst feel; for I am sad
When thou dost shed a tear: explain thy griefs 70
To one who in this lonely isle hath been
The watcher of thy sleep and hours of life,
From the young day when first thy infant hand
Pluck'd witless the weak flowers, till thine arm
Why should I tell thee what thou so well seest? Show thy heart's secret to an ancient Power
Who hath forsaken old and sacred thrones
For prophecies of thee, and for the sake
Of loveliness new born."--Apollo then,
With sudden scrutiny and gloomless eyes, 80
Thus answer'd, while his white melodious throat
Throbb'd with the syllables.--"Mnemosyne!
Thy name is on my tongue, I know not how;
Yields to my step aspirant? why should I Why should I strive to show what from thy lips
Would come no mystery? For me, dark, dark,
And painful vile oblivion seals my eyes:
I strive to search wherefore I am so sad,
Until a melancholy numbs my limbs;
And then upon the grass I sit, and moan, 90
Like one who once had wings.--O why should I
Feel curs'd and thwarted, when the liegeless air
And make its silvery splendour pant with bliss. Spurn the green turf as hateful to my feet?
Goddess benign, point forth some unknown thing:
Are there not other regions than this isle?
What are the stars? There is the sun, the sun!
And the most patient brilliance of the moon!
And stars by thousands! Point me out the way
To any one particular beauteous star, 100
And I will flit into it with my lyre,
A wondrous lesson in thy silent face: I have heard the cloudy thunder: Where is power?
Whose hand, whose essence, what divinity
Makes this alarum in the elements,
While I here idle listen on the shores
In fearless yet in aching ignorance?
O tell me, lonely Goddess, by thy harp,
That waileth every morn and eventide,
Tell me why thus I rave, about these groves! 110
Mute thou remainest--Mute! yet I can read
Beneath his white soft temples, stedfast kept Knowledge enormous makes a God of me.
Names, deeds, gray legends, dire events, rebellions,
Majesties, sovran voices, agonies,
Creations and destroyings, all at once
Pour into the wide hollows of my brain,
And deify me, as if some blithe wine
Or bright elixir peerless I had drunk,
And so become immortal."--Thus the God, 120
While his enkindled eyes, with level glance
Kept undulation round his eager neck. Trembling with light upon Mnemosyne.
Soon wild commotions shook him, and made flush
All the immortal fairness of his limbs;
Most like the struggle at the gate of death;
Or liker still to one who should take leave
Of pale immortal death, and with a pang
As hot as death's is chill, with fierce convulse
Die into life: so young Apollo anguish'd: 130
His very hair, his golden tresses famed
Celestial * * * * * During the pain Mnemosyne upheld
Her arms as one who prophesied.--At length
Apollo shriek'd;--and lo! from all his limbs
