Ever as if just rising from a sleep,
Sobb'd Clymene among her tangled hair.
Forehead to forehead held their monstrous horns; In midst of all lay Themis, at the feet
And thus in thousand hugest phantasies Made a fit roofing to this nest of woe. Instead of thrones, hard flint they sat upon, Couches of rugged stone, and slaty ridge Stubborn'd with iron. All were not assembled: Some chain'd in torture, and some wandering. Cous, and Gyges, and Briareüs, Typhon, and Dolor, and Porphyrion, With many more, the brawniest in assault, Were pent in regions of laborious breath; Dungeon'd in opaque element, to keep
Of Ops the queen all clouded round from sight; No shape distinguishable, more than when Thick night confounds the pine-tops with the clouds:
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 chant 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 Their heads appear'd, and up their stature grew
Their clenched teeth still clench'd, and all their Till on the level height their steps found ease: limbs
Then Thea spread abroad her trembling arms
Lock'd up like veins of metal, crampt and Upon the precincts of this nest of pain,
Without a motion, save of their big hearts Heaving in pain, and horribly convulsed
With sanguine, feverous, boiling gurge of pulse. Mnemosyne was straying in the world; Far from her moon had Phoebe wander'd; And many else were free to roam abroad, 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, When the chill rain begins at shut of eve, 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. Creus was one; his ponderous iron mace Lay by him, and a shatter'd rib of rock Told of his rage, ere he thus sank and pined. Iapetus another; in his grasp,
A serpent's plashy neck; its barbed tongue Squeezed from the gorge, and all its uncurl'd
Dead; and because the creature could not spit Its poison in the eyes of conquering Jove. Next Cottus: prone he lay, chin uppermost, As though in pain; for still upon the flint He ground severe his skull, with open mouth And eyes at horrid working. Nearest him Asia, born of most enormous Caf, 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, By Oxus or in Ganges' sacred isles. 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 raised, all prostrate else, Shadow'd Enceladus; once tame and mild As grazing ox unworried in the meads; Now tiger-passion'd, lion-thoughted, wroth, He meditated, plotted, and even now Was hurling mountains in that second war, Not long delay'd, that scared the younger Gods To hide themselves in forms of beast and bird. Not far hence Atlas; and beside him prone Phorcus, the sire of Gorgons. Neighbour'd close Oceanus, and Tethys, in whose lap
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, Of rage, of fear, anxiety, revenge, 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 First onwards in, among the fallen tribe.
As with us mortal men, the laden heart Is persecuted more, and fever'd more, When it is nighing to the mournful house Where other hearts are sick of the same bruise; So Saturn, as he walk'd into the midst, Felt faint, and would have sunk among the rest, But that he met Enceladus's eye,
Whose mightiness, and awe of him, at once Came like an inspiration; and he shouted,
And Ops, uplifting her black folded veil, Show'd her pale cheeks, and all her forehead wan 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 Among immortals when a God gives sign, With hushing finger, how he means to load His tongue with the full weight of utterless thought,
With thunder, and with music, and with pomp: Such noise is like the roar of bleak-grown pines; Which, when it ceases in this mountain'd world, No other sound succeeds; but ceasing here, 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, Which is its own great judge and searcher out, 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 Saved from the shores of darkness, when the
Low-ebb'd still hid it up in shallow gloom ;- And the which book ye know I ever kept
For my firm-based footstool:-Ah, infirm! Not there, nor in sign, symbol, or portent Of element, earth, water, air, and fire,— At war, at peace, or inter-quarrelling
One against one, or two, or three, or all Each several one against the other three, As fire with air loud warring when rain-floods 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: No, nowhere can unriddle, though I search, And pore on Nature's universal scroll Even to swooning, why ye, Divinities,
Then thou first-born, and we the giant-race, 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, And to envisage circumstance, all calm, That is the top of sovereignty. Mark well! 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, And thousand other signs of purer life; So on our heels a fresh perfection treads, 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
The first-born of all shaped 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 Quarrel with the proud forests it hath fed,
And feedeth still, more comely than itself? Can it deny the chiefdom of green groves? What can I Or shall the tree be envious of the dove
O Titans, shall I say Arise!'-Ye groan: Shall I say 'Crouch!'-Ye groan. then?
O Heaven wide! O unseen parent dear! What can I? Tell me, all ye brethren Gods, How we can war, how engine our great wrath! O speak your counsel now, for Saturn's ear Is all a-hunger'd. Thou, Oceanus,
Ponderest high and deep; and in thy face
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 In right thereof; for 'tis the eternal law That first in beauty should be first in might:
Which comes of thought and musing: give us Yea, by that law, another race may drive help!"
So ended Saturn; and the God of the Sea, Sophist and sage, from no Athenian grove, But cogitation in his watery shades, Arose, with locks not oozy, and began, In murmurs, which his first-endeavouring tongue Caught infant-like from the far-foamed sands. "O ye, whom wrath consumes! who, passion- stung,
Writhe at defeat, and nurse your agonies! Shut up your senses, stifle up your ears, My voice is not a bellows unto ire. Yet listen, ye who will, whilst I bring proof How ye, perforce, must be content to stoop: And in the proof much comfort will I give, If ye will take that comfort in its truth. We fall by course of Nature's law, not force Of thunder, or of Jove. Great Saturn, thou Hast sifted well the atom-universe; 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 wander'd to eternal truth. And first, as thou wast not the first of powers, So art thou not the last; it cannot be. Thou art not the beginning nor the end. From chaos and parental darkness came Light, the first-fruits of that intestine broil, That sullen ferment, which for wondrous ends 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,
The Heavens and the Earth, were manifest:
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, That it enforced me to bid sad farewell To all my empire: farewell sad I took, And hither came, to see how dolorous fate Had wrought upon ye; and how I might best Give consolation in this woe extreme. Receive the truth, and let it be your balm."
Whether through pozed conviction, or disdain, They guarded silence, when Oceanus Left murmuring, what deepest thought can tell? But so it was, none answer'd for a space, Save one whom none regarded, Clymene: And yet she answer'd not, only complain'd, With hectic lips, and eyes up-looking mild, Thus wording timidly among the fierce : "O Father! I am here the simplest voice, And all my knowledge is that joy is gone, And this thing woe crept in among our hearts, There to remain for ever, as I fear:
I would not bode of evil, if I thought So weak a creature could turn off the help Which by just right should come of mighty Gods; Yet let me tell my sorrow, let me tell Of what I heard, and how it made me weep, And know that we had parted from all hope. I stood upon a shore, a pleasant shore, 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;
Too full of joy and soft delicious warmth; So that I felt a movement in my heart To chide, and to reproach that solitude With songs of misery, music of our woes; And sat me down, and took a mouthed shell And murmur'd into it, and made melody- O melody no more; for while I sang, And with poor skill let pass into the breeze The dull shell's echo, from a bowery strand 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 With that new blissful golden melody. A living death was in each gush of sounds, Each family of rapturous hurried notes, That fell, one after one, yet all at once,
And singe away the swollen clouds of Jove, 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: The days of peace and slumberous calm are fled; Those days, all innocent of scathing war, 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; That was before we knew the winged thing, Victory, might be lost, or might be won. And be ye mindful that Hyperion, Our brightest brother, still is undisgraced- Hyperion, lo! his radiance is here!"
All eyes were on Enceladus's face,
Like pearl beads dropping sudden from their And they beheld, while still Hyperion's name
And then another, then another strain, Each like a dove leaving its olive perch, With music wing'd instead of silent plumes, To hover round my head, and make me sick Of joy and grief at once. Grief overcame, And I was stopping up my frantic ears, 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!' I fled, it follow'd me, and cried, 'Apollo!' O Father, and O Brethren! had ye felt Those pains of mine! O Saturn, had'st thou felt, Ye would not call this too indulged tongue Presumptuous, in thus venturing to be heard!"
Flew from his lips up to the vaulted rocks, A pallid gleam across his features stern: Not savage, for he saw full many a God Wroth as himself. He look'd upon them all, And in each face he saw a gleam of light, But splendider in Saturn's, whose hoar locks Shone like the bubbling foam about a keel When the brow sweeps into a midnight cove. In pale and silver silence they remain'd, Till suddenly a splendour, like the morn, Pervaded all the beetling gloomy steeps, All the sad spaces of oblivion,
And every gulf, and every chasm old, And every height, and every sullen depth, Voiceless, or hoarse with loud tormented streams: And all the everlasting cataracts,
And all the headlong torrents far and near,
So far her voice flow'd on, like timorous brook Mantled before in darkness and huge shade,
That, lingering along a pebbled coast, Doth fear to meet the sea: but sea it met, And shudder'd; for the overwhelming voice Of huge Enceladus swallow'd it in wrath: The ponderous syllables, like the sullen waves In the half-glutted hollows of reef-rocks, Came booming thus, while still upon his arm He lean'd; not rising, from supreme contempt. "Or shall we listen to the over-wise, Or to the over-foolish giant, Gods? Not thunderbolt on thunderbolt, till all That rebel Jove's whole armoury were spent, Not world on world upon these shoulders piled, Could agonize me more than baby-words In midst of this dethronement horrible.
Now saw the light and made it terrible.
It was Hyperion:-a granite peak
His bright feet touch'd, and there he stay'd to view The misery his brilliance had betray'd
To the most hateful secing of itself. Golden his hair of short Numidian curl, Regal his shape majestic, a vast shade In midst of his own brightness, like the bulk 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, He press'd together, and in silence stood. Despondence seized again the fallen Gods At sight of the dejected King of Day,
Speak! roar! shout! yell! ye sleepy Titans all. And many hid their faces from the light: Do
ye forget the blows, the buffets vile?
Are ye not smitten by a youngling arm? Dost thou forget, sham Monarch of the Waves, Thy scalding in the seas? What! have I roused Your spleens with so few simple words as these? O joy! for now I see you are not lost : O joy! for now I see a thousand eyes Wide glaring for revenge!"-As this he said, He lifted up his stature vast, and stood, 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,
But fierce Enceladus sent forth his eyes Among the brotherhood; and, at their glare, Uprose Iäpetus, and Creüs too,
And Phorcus, sea-born, and together strode To where he towered on his eminence. There those four shouted forth old Saturn's name;
Hyperion from the peak loud answered, "Sa. turn!"
Saturn sat near the Mother of the Gods, In whose face was no joy, though all the Gods Gave from their hollow throats the name of
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
Thy lips, and antheming a lonely grief.
Leave them, O Muse! for thou anon wilt find Many a fallen old Divinity
Wandering in vain about bewilder'd shores. Meantime touch piously the Delphic harp, And not a wind of heaven but will breathe In aid soft warble from the Dorian flute; For lo! 'tis for the Father of all verse. 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; Let the red wine within the goblet boil, Cold as a bubbling well; let faint-lipp'd shells, Un sands, or in great deeps, vermilion turn Through all their labyrinths; and let the maid Blush keenly, as with some warm kiss surprised. Chief isle of the embower'd Cyclades, 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:
Apollo is once more the golden theme! Where was he, when the Giant of the Sun Stood bright, amid the sorrow of his peers? Together had he left his mother fair And his twin-sister sleeping in their bower, And in the morning twilight wander'd forth Beside the osiers of a rivulet, Full ankle-deep in lilies of the vale.
The nightingale had ceased, and a few stars 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, Though scarcely heard in many a green recess. He listen'd, and he wept, and his bright tears Went trickling down the golden bow he held. Thus with half-shut suffused eyes he stood, While from beneath some cumbrous boughs
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: "How camest thou over the unfooted sea? Or hath that antique mien and robed form Moved in these vales invisible till now?
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 Of such new tuneful wonder. Is't not strange 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 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 Could bend that bow heroic to all times. 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, Thus answer'd, while his white melodious throat Throbb'd with the syllables." Mnemosyne ! Thy name is on my tongue, I know not how; Why should I tell thee what thou so well seest? 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, Like one who once had wings.-O why should I Feel cursed and thwarted, when the liegeless air Yields to my step aspirant? why should I 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, And I will flit into it with my lyre, And make its silvery splendour pant with bliss. I have heard the cloudy thunder: Where is power? Whose hand, whose essence, what divinity Makes this alarm 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! Mute thou remainest-Mute? yet I can read A wondrous lesson in thy silent face: Knowledge enormous makes a God of me, Names, deeds, gray legends, dire events, re- bellions,
Majesties, sovran voices, agonies,
Creations, and destroyings, all at once Pour into the wide hollows of my brain,
Sure I have heard those vestments sweeping o'er And deify me, as if some blithe wine, 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. Goddess! I have beheld those eyes before, And their eternal calm, and all that face, 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,
Or bright elixir peerless I had drunk, And so become immortal."-Thus the God, While his enkindled eyes, with level glance Beneath his white soft temples, steadfast kept 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; His very hair, his golden tresses famed Kept undulation round his eager neck, During the pain, Mnemosyne upheld
Her arms as one who prophesied.-At length Apollo shriek'd;-and lo! from all his limbs Celestial
ON RECEIVING A CURIOUS SHELL.
WHAT though, while the wonders of nature exploring,
I cannot your light mazy footsteps attend; Nor listen to accents, that almost adoring,
Bless Cynthia's face, the enthusiast's friend:
Yet over the steep, whence the mountain-stream rushes,
With you, kindest friends, in idea I rove; Mark the clear tumbling crystal, its passionate
Its spray that the wild-flower kindly bedews.
Why linger ye so, the wild labyrinth strolling? Why breathless, unable your bliss to declare? Ah! you list to the nightingale's tender condoling, Responsive to sylphs, in the moonbeamy air.
'Tis morn, and the flowers with dew are yet drooping,
I see you are treading the verge of the sea: And now! ah, I see it—you just now are stooping To pick up the keepsake intended for me.
If a cherub, on pinions of silver descending, Had brought me a gem from the fretwork of Heaven;
And smiles with his star-cheering voice sweetly blending.
The blessings of Tighe had melodiously given;
It had not created a warmer emotion
Than the present, fair nymphs, I was blest with
Which, pure from mossy beds, did down distil, And, after parting beds of simple flowers, By many streams a little lake did fill, Which round its marge reflected woven bowers, And, in its middle space, a sky that never lowers.
There the kingfisher saw his plumage bright, Vying with fish of brilliant dye below; Whose silken fins' and golden scales' light Cast upward, through the waves, a ruby glow: There saw the swan his neck of arched snow, And oar'd himself along with majesty; Sparkled his jetty eyes; his feet did show Beneath the waves like Afric's ebony, And on his back a fay reclined voluptuously.
Ah! could I tell the wonders of an isle That in that fairest lake had placed been, I could e'en Dido of her grief beguile; Or rob from aged Lear his bitter teen: For sure so fair a place was never seen Of all that ever charm'd romantic eye: It seem'd an emerald in the silver sheen Of the bright waters; or as when on high, Through clouds of fleecy white, laughs the ceru
And all around it dipp'd luxuriously Slopings of verdure through the glossy tide, Which, as it were in gentle amity, Rippled delighted up the flowery side; As if to glean the ruddy tears it tried, Which fell profusely from the rose-tree stem! Haply it was the workings of its pride In strife to throw upon the shore a gem Outvying all the buds in Flora's diadem.
My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk, Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk : 'Tis not through envy of thy happy lot, But being too happy in thy happiness,-- That thou, light-winged Dryad of the trees, In some melodious plot Of beechen green, and shadows numberless, Singest of summer in full-throated ease.
O for a draught of vintage, that hath been Cool'd a long age in the deep-delved earth, Tasting of Flora and the country-green, Dance, and Provençal song, and sun-burnt mirth!
O for a beaker full of the warm South, Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene, With beaded bubbles winking at the brim, And purple-stained mouth; That I might drink, and leave the world un-
And with thee fade away into the forest dim:
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