Hyperion: A Fragment.......................................................................................................................................1

John Keats ................................................................................................................................................1

Hyperion: A Fragment

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Hyperion: A Fragment

John Keats

BOOK I

BOOK II

BOOK III

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 grayhair'd Saturn, quiet as a stone,

Still as the silence round about his lair;

Forest on forest hung about his head

Like cloud on cloud. No stir of air was there,

Not so much life as on a summer's day

Robs not one light seed from the feather'd grass,

But where the dead leaf fell, there did it rest.

A stream went voiceless by, still deadened more

By reason of his fallen divinity

Spreading a shade: the Naiad 'mid her reeds

Press'd her cold finger closer to her lips.

Along the marginsand large footmarks went,

No further than to where his feet had stray'd,

And slept there since. Upon the sodden ground

His old right hand lay nerveless, listless, dead,

Unsceptred; and his realmless eyes were closed;

While his bow'd head seem'd list'ning to the Earth,

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

Touch'd his wide shoulders, after bending low

With reverence, though to one who knew it not.

She was a Goddess of the infant world;

By her in stature the tall Amazon

Had stood a pigmy's height; she would have ta'en

Achilles by the hair and bent his neck;

Or with a finger stay'd Ixion's wheel.

Her face was large as that of Memphian sphinx,

Pedestal'd haply in a palace court,

When sages look'd to Egypt for their lore.

But oh! how unlike marble was that face:

How beautiful, if sorrow had not made

Sorrow more beautiful than Beauty's self.

There was a listening fear in her regard,

As if calamity had but begun;

As if the vanward clouds of evil days

Had spent their malice, and the sullen rear

Was with its stored thunder labouring up.

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:

The other upon Saturn's bended neck

She laid, and to the level of his ear

Leaning with parted lips, some words she spake

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In solemn tenour and deep organ tone:

Some mourning words, which in our feeble tongue

Would come in these like accents; O how frail

To that large utterance of the early Gods!

"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

"Knows thee not, thus afflicted, for a God;

"And ocean too, with all its solemn noise,

"Has from thy sceptre pass'd; and all the air

"Is emptied of thine hoary majesty.

"Thy thunder, conscious of the new command,

"Rumbles reluctant o'er our fallen house;

"And thy sharp lightning in unpractis'd hands

"Scorches and burns our once serene domain.

"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?

"Why should I ope thy melancholy eyes?

"Saturn, sleep on! while at thy feet I weep."

As when, upon a tranced summernight,

Those greenrob'd senators of mighty woods,

Tall oaks, branchcharmed by the earnest stars,

Dream, and so dream all night without a stir,

Save from one gradual solitary gust

Which comes upon the silence, and dies off,

As if the ebbing air had but one wave;

So came these words and went; the while in tears

She touch'd her fair large forehead to the ground,

Just where her falling hair might be outspread

A soft and silken mat for Saturn's feet.

One moon, with alteration slow, had shed

Her silver seasons four upon the night,

And still these two were postured motionless,

Like natural sculpture in cathedral cavern;

The frozen God still couchant on the earth,

And the sad Goddess weeping at his feet:

Until at length old Saturn lifted up

His faded eyes, and saw his kingdom gone,

And all the gloom and sorrow of the place,

And that fair kneeling Goddess; and then spake,

As with a palsied tongue, and while his beard

Shook horrid with such aspenmalady:

"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

"Is Saturn's; tell me, if thou hear'st the voice

"Of Saturn; tell me, if this wrinkling brow,

"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?

"But it is so; and I am smother'd up,

"And buried from all godlike exercise

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"Of influence benign on planets pale,

"Of admonitions to the winds and seas,

"Of peaceful sway above man's harvesting,

"And all those acts which Deity supreme

"Doth ease its heart of love in. I am gone

"Away from my own bosom: I have left

"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;

"Space region'd with lifeair; and barren void;

"Spaces of fire, and all the yawn of hell.

"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.

"Yes, there must be a golden victory;

"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

"Of strings in hollow shells; and there shall be

"Beautiful things made new, for the surprise

"Of the skychildren; I will give command:

"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.

He stood, and heard not Thea's sobbing deep;

A little time, and then again he snatch'd

Utterance thus. "But cannot I create?

"Cannot I form? Cannot I fashion forth

"Another world, another universe,

"To overbear and crumble this to naught?

"Where is another chaos? Where?" That word

Found way unto Olympus, and made quake

The rebel three. Thea was startled up,

And in her bearing was a sort of hope,

As thus she quickvoic'd spake, yet full of awe.

"This cheers our fallen house: come to our friends,

"O Saturn! come away, and give them heart;

"I know the covert, for thence came I hither."

Thus brief; then with beseeching eyes she went

With backward footing through the shade a space:

He follow'd, and she turn'd to lead the way

Through aged boughs, that yielded like the mist

Which eagles cleave upmounting from their nest.

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:

The Titans fierce, selfhid, or prisonbound,

Groan'd for the old allegiance once more,

And listen'd in sharp pain for Saturn's voice.

But one of the whole mammothbrood still kept

His sov'reignty, and rule, and majesty;

Blazing Hyperion on his orbed fire

Still sat, still snuff'd the incense, teeming up

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From man to the sun's God; yet unsecure:

For as among us mortals omens drear

Fright and perplex, so also shuddered he

Not at dog's howl, or gloombird's hated screech,

Or the familiar visiting of one

Upon the first toll of his passingbell,

Or prophesyings of the midnight lamp;

But horrors, portion'd to a giant nerve,

Oft made Hyperion ache. His palace bright

Bastion'd with pyramids of glowing gold,

And touch'd with shade of bronzed obelisks,

Glar'd a bloodred through all its thousand courts,

Arches, and domes, and fiery galleries;

And all its curtains of Aurorian clouds

Flush'd angerly: while sometimes eagle's wings,

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,

Instead of sweets, his ample palate took

Savour of poisonous brass and metal sick:

And so, 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 pac'd away the pleasant hours of ease

With stride colossal, on from hall to hall;

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.

Even now, while Saturn, rous'd from icy trance,

Went step for step with Thea through the woods,

Hyperion, leaving twilight in the rear,

Came slope upon the threshold of the west;

Then, as was wont, his palacedoor flew ope

In smoothest silence, save what solemn tubes,

Blown by the serious Zephyrs, gave of sweet

And wandering sounds, slowbreathed melodies;

And like a rose in vermeil tint and shape,

In fragrance soft, and coolness to the eye,

That inlet to severe magnificence

Stood full blown, for the God to enter in.

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,

That scar'd away the meek ethereal Hours

And made their dovewings tremble. On he flared,

From stately nave to nave, from vault to vault,

Through bowers of fragrant and enwreathed light,

And diamondpaved lustrous long arcades,

Until he reach'd the great main cupola;

There standing fierce beneath, he stamped his foot,

And from the basement deep to the high towers

Jarr'd his own golden region; and before

The quavering thunder thereupon had ceas'd,

His voice leapt out, despite of godlike curb,

To this result: "O dreams of day and night!

"O monstrous forms! O effigies of pain!

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"O spectres busy in a cold, cold gloom!

"O lankear'd Phantoms of blackweeded pools!

"Why do I know ye? why have I seen ye? why

"Is my eternal essence thus distraught

"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,

"This calm luxuriance of blissful light,

"These crystalline pavilions, and pure fanes,

"Of all my lucent empire? It is left

"Deserted, void, nor any haunt of mine.

"The blaze, the splendour, and the symmetry,

"I cannot see but darkness, death and darkness.

"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

"I will advance a terrible right arm

"Shall scare that infant thunderer, rebel Jove,

"And bid old Saturn take his throne again."

He spake, and ceas'd, the while a heavier threat

Held struggle with his throat but came not forth;

For as in theatres of crowded men

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.

At this, through all his bulk an agony

Crept gradual, from the feet unto the crown,

Like a lithe serpent vast and muscular

Making slow way, with head and neck convuls'd

From overstrained might. Releas'd, he fled

To the eastern gates, and full six dewy hours

Before the dawn in season due should blush,

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,

Spun round in sable curtaining of clouds;

Not therefore veiled quite, blindfold, and hid,

But ever and anon the glancing spheres,

Circles, and arcs, and broadbelting colure,

Glow'd through, and wrought upon the muffling dark

Sweetshaped lightnings from the nadir deep

Up to the zenith, hieroglyphics old

Which sages and keeneyed astrologers

Then living on the earth, with labouring thought

Won from the gaze of many centuries:

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;

While still the dazzling globe maintain'd eclipse,

Awaiting for Hyperion's command.

Fain would he have commanded, fain took throne

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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

Open'd upon the dusk demesnes of night;

And the bright Titan, phrenzied with new woes,

Unus'd to bend, by hard compulsion bent

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.

"O brightest of my children dear, earthborn

"And skyengendered, Son of Mysteries

"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 newform'd art thou, oh brightest child!

"Of these, thy brethren and the Goddesses!

"There is sad feud among ye, and rebellion

"Of son against his sire. I saw him fall,

"I saw my firstborn 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,

"Unruffled, like high Gods, ye liv'd and ruled:

"Now I behold in you fear, hope, and wrath;

"Actions of rage and passion; even as

"I see them, on the mortal world beneath,

"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;

"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!

"For there thou wilt find Saturn, and his woes.

"Meantime I will keep watch on thy bright sun,

"And of thy seasons be a careful nurse."

Ere half this regionwhisper had come down,

Hyperion arose, and on the stars

Lifted his curved lids, and kept them wide

Until it ceas'd; and still he kept them wide:

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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,

And plung'd all noiseless into the deep night.

BOOK II.

Just at the selfsame beat of Time's wide wings

Hyperion slid into the rustled air,

And Saturn gain'd with Thea that sad place

Where Cybele and the bruised Titans mourn'd.

It was a den where no insulting light

Could glimmer on their tears; where their own groans

They felt, but heard not, for the solid roar

Of thunderous waterfalls and torrents hoarse,

Pouring a constant bulk, uncertain where.

Crag jutting forth to crag, and rocks that seem'd

Ever as if just rising from a sleep,

Forehead to forehead held their monstrous horns;

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.

Coeus, and Gyges, and Briareus,

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

Their clenched teeth still clench'd, and all their limbs

Lock'd up like veins of metal, crampt and screw'd;

Without a motion, save of their big hearts

Heaving in pain, and horribly convuls'd

With sanguine feverous boiling gurge of pulse.

Mnemosyne was straying in the world;

Far from her moon had Phoebe wandered;

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

Squeez'd from the gorge, and all its uncurl'd length

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,

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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

Palmshaded 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 rais'd, all prostrate else,

Shadow'd Enceladus; once tame and mild

As grazing ox unworried in the meads;

Now tigerpassion'd, lionthoughted, wroth,

He meditated, plotted, and even now

Was hurling mountains in that second war,

Not long delay'd, that scar'd 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

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

Thick night confounds the pinetops with the clouds:

And many else whose names may not be told.

For when the Muse's wings are airward 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

Their heads appear'd, and up their stature grew

Till on the level height their steps found ease:

Then Thea spread abroad her trembling arms

Upon the precincts of this nest of pain,

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,

"Titans, behold your God!" at which some groan'd;

Some started on their feet; some also shouted;

Some wept, some wail'd, all bow'd with reverence;

And Ops, uplifting her black folded veil,

Show'd her pale cheeks, and all her forehead wan,

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Her eyebrows thin and jet, and hollow eyes.

There is a roaring in the bleakgrown 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 bleakgrown 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 spiritleaved book

"Which starry Uranus with finger bright

"Sav'd from the shores of darkness, when the waves

"Lowebb'd still hid it up in shallow gloom;

"And the which book ye know I ever kept

"For my firmbased footstool: Ah, infirm!

"Not there, nor in sign, symbol, or portent

"Of element, earth, water, air, and fire,

"At war, at peace, or interquarreling

"One against one, or two, or three, or all

"Each several one against the other three,

"As fire with air loud warring when rainfloods

"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, no where can unriddle, though I search,

"And pore on Nature's universal scroll

"Even to swooning, why ye, Divinities,

"The firstborn 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!

"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 ahunger'd. Thou, Oceanus,

"Ponderest high and deep; and in thy face

"I see, astonied, that severe content

"Which comes of thought and musing: give us 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 firstendeavouring tongue

Caught infantlike from the farfoamed sands.

"O ye, whom wrath consumes! who, passionstung,

"Writhe at defeat, and nurse your agonies!

"Shut up your senses, stifle up your ears,

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"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 atomuniverse;

"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.

"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:

"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

"Quarrel with the proud forests it hath fed,

"And feedeth still, more comely than itself?

"Can it deny the chiefdom of green groves?

"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 foresttrees, and our fair boughs

"Have bred forth, not pale solitary doves,

"But eagles goldenfeather'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:

"Yea, by that law, another race may drive

"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,

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"That it enforc'd 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 poz'd 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 uplooking 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,

"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,

"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 morningbright 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, hadst thou felt,

"Ye would not call this too indulged tongue

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"Presumptuous, in thus venturing to be heard."

So far her voice flow'd on, like timorous brook

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 sullen waves

In the halfglutted hollows of reefrocks,

Came booming thus, while still upon his arm

He lean'd; not rising, from supreme contempt.

"Or shall we listen to the overwise,

"Or to the overfoolish, GiantGods?

"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 babywords

"In midst of this dethronement horrible.

"Speak! roar! shout! yell! ye sleepy Titans all.

"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 rous'd

"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

"Wideglaring 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,

"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 openeyed 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,

And they beheld, while still Hyperion's name

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 prow 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,

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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,

Mantled before in darkness and huge shade,

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 seeing 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 seiz'd again the fallen Gods

At sight of the dejected King of Day,

And many hid their faces from the light:

But fierce Enceladus sent forth his eyes

Among the brotherhood; and, at their glare,

Uprose Iapetus, and Creus too,

And Phorcus, seaborn, 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, "Saturn!"

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 "Saturn!"

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

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 bewildered 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 faintlipp'd shells,

On sands, or in great deeps, vermilion turn

Through all their labyrinths; and let the maid

Blush keenly, as with some warm kiss surpris'd.

Chief isle of the embowered Cyclades,

Rejoice, O Delos, with thine olives green,

And poplars, and lawnshading palms, and beech,

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In which the Zephyr breathes the loudest song,

And hazels thick, darkstemm'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 twinsister sleeping in their bower,

And in the morning twilight wandered forth

Beside the osiers of a rivulet,

Full ankledeep in lillies of the vale.

The nightingale had ceas'd, and a few stars

Were lingering in the heavens, while the thrush

Began calmthroated. 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 halfshut 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:

"How cam'st thou over the unfooted sea?

"Or hath that antique mien and robed form

"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 midforest. 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,

"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:

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"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 curs'd 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 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!

"Mute thou remainest mute! yet I can read

"A wondrous lesson in thy silent face:

"Knowledge enormous makes a God of me.

"Names, deeds, grey 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,

While his enkindled eyes, with level glance

Beneath his white soft temples, stedfast kept

Trembling with light upon Mnemosyne.

Soon wild commotions shook him, and made flush

All the immortal fairness of his limbs

Into a hue more roseate than sweet pain

Gives to a ravish'd Nymph when her warm tears

Gush luscious with no sob. Or more severe,

More 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 Glory dawn'd: he was a god!

THE END

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