Moan, brethren, moan; for lo, the rebel spheres Spin round; the stars their ancient courses keep; Clouds still with shadowy moisture haunt the earth, Still suck their fill of light from sun and moon; Still buds the tree, and still the seashores murmur; There is no death in all the universe,
No smell of death.-There shall be death. Moan, moan;
Moan, Cybele, moan; for thy pernicious babes Have changed a god into an aching palsy.
Moan, brethren, moan, for I have no strength left; Weak as the reed, weak, feeble as my voice. Oh! Oh! the pain, the pain of feebleness;
Moan, moan, for still I thaw; or give me help; Throw down those imps, and give me victory.
Let me hear other groans, [and trumpets blown
Of triumph calm, and hymns of festival,]
From the gold peaks of heaven's high-piled clouds ;* 410 [Voices of soft proclaim, and silver stir
Of strings in hollow shells; and there shall be Beautiful things made new, for the surprise Of the sky-children."] So he feebly ceased, With such a poor and sickly-sounding pause, Methought I hear some old man of the earth Bewailing earthly loss; nor could my eyes And ears act with that unison of sense
Which marries sweet sound with the grace of form,
While Fate seem'd strangled in my nervous grasp? But it is so; and I am smother'd up And buried from all godlike exercise Of influence benign on planets pale, Of admonitions to the winds and seas, Of peaceful sway above men's harvesting, And all the acts which Deity supreme Doth ease its heart of love in."
Upon the gold clouds metropolitan.
And dolorous accent from a tragic harp With large-limb'd visions. More I scrutinized.
Still fixt he sat beneath the sable trees,
Whose arms spread straggling in wild serpent forms,
With leaves all hush'd; his awful presence there (Now all was silent) gave a deadly lie
To what I erewhile heard: only his lips
Trembled amid the white curls of his beard;
They told the truth, though round the snowy locks Hung nobly, as upon the face of heaven
A mid-day fleece of clouds. Thea arose,
And stretcht her white arm through the hollow dark, Pointing some whither: whereat he too rose, Like a vast giant, seen by men at sea
To grow pale from the waves at dull midnight. They melted from my sight into the woods;
Ere I could turn, Moneta cried, "These twain
Are speeding to the families of grief,
Where, rooft in by black rocks, they waste [wait?] in pain And darkness, for no hope." And she spake on,
As ye may read who can unwearied pass Onward from the antechamber of this dream, Where, even at the open doors, awhile
I must delay, and glean my memory
Of her high phrase-perhaps no further dare.
"Mortal, that thou mayst understand aright, I humanize my sayings to thine ear, Making comparisons of earthly things; Or thou mightst better listen to the wind,
Whose language is to thee a barren noise, Though it blows legend-laden thro' the trees. In melancholy realms big tears are shed, More sorrow like to this, and such like woe, Too huge for mortal tongue or pen of scribe. The Titans fierce, self-hid or prison-bound, Groan for the old allegiance once more, Listening in their doom for Saturn's voice.+ But one of the whole eagle-brood‡ still keeps His sovereignty, and rule, and majesty: Blazing Hyperion on his orbed fire Still sits, still snuffs the incense teeming up From Man to the Sun's God—yet insecure. For as upon the earth § dire prodigies [Fright and perplex, so also shudders he ;
Not at dog's howl or gloom-bird's hated screech, Or the familiar visiting of one
Upon the first toll of his passing bell,
Or prophesyings of the midnight lamp;
But horrors, portioned to a giant nerve,
Make great Hyperion ache. || His palace bright, Bastioned with pyramids of shining gold,
And touched with shade of bronzed obelisks, Glares a blood-red thro' all the thousand courts, Arches, and domes, and fiery galleries;
And all its curtains of Aurorian clouds
Flash angerly;] when he would taste the wreaths [Of incense breathed aloft from sacred hills Instead of sweets, his ample palate takes Savour of poisonous brass and metals sick ;]
* Meanwhile in other realms
And listen'd in sharp pain for Saturn's voice. Mammoth-brood.
§ For as among us mortals omens drear.
Oft made Hyperion ache.
Wherefore [when harbour'd in the sleepy West, After the full completion of fair day, For rest divine upon exalted couch, And slumber in the arms of melody,
He paces through* the pleasant hours of ease, With strides colossal, on from hall to hall, While far within each aisle and deep recess His winged minions in close clusters stand Amazed, and full of fear; like anxious men, Who on a wide plain gather in sad troops, † When earthquakes jar their battlements and towers. Even now where Saturn, roused from icy trance, Goes step for step with Thea from yon‡ woods, Hyperion, leaving twilight in the rear,
Is sloping to the threshold of the West.] Thither we tend." Now in clear light I stood, Relieved from the dusk vale. Mnemosyne Was sitting on a square-edged polish'd stone, That in its lucid depth reflected pure
Her priestess' garments. My quick eyes ran on [From stately nave to nave, from vault to vault, Through bow'rs of fragrant and enwreathed light, And diamond-paned lustrous long arcades.] Anon rush'd by the bright Hyperion
[His flaming robes stream'd out beyond his heels, And gave a roar as if of earthy fire,
That scared away the meek ethereal hours,
And made their dove-wings tremble. On he flared.]
A FRAGMENT OF KEATS, OF DOUBTFUL AUTHENTICITY.
The following Poem was bought by me, in what appears to be Keats's autograph, at the same sale as that in which the Shelley Letters afterwards discovered to be forged-were disposed of. If not authentic, it is a clever imitation; but I am inclined to believe, from other circumstances, that there were true and false pieces ingeniously mingled in that collection, and that it would be unjust to assume that they were all the production of literary fraud.
WHAT sylph-like form before my eyes Flits on the breeze and fans the skies, With more than youth's elastic grace, And more than virgin's heaven of face, On glittering pinions lightly borne, Transparent with the hues of morn,— With starlike eye and glance sublime, That far out-span the arch of Time,- And thoughts that breathe to mortal ears The speaking music of the spheres: That, floating on th' enamoured gale, Awake the song of wood and dale?
Some creature, sure, with form endued
In Nature's more elastic mood,
When, wearied with her earthly toil, She peopled some ethereal isle With essences, that no alloy Of perishable dust annoy :
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