914 lines
44 KiB
Plaintext
914 lines
44 KiB
Plaintext
1816
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HYPERION
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A FRAGMENT
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by John Keats
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BOOK I.
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Deep in the shady sadness of a vale
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Far sunken from the healthy breath of morn,
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Far from the fiery noon, and eve's one star,
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Sat gray-hair'd Saturn, quiet as a stone,
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Still as the silence round about his lair;
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Forest on forest hung about his head
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Like cloud on cloud. No stir of air was there,
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Not so much life as on a summer's day
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Robs not one light seed from the feather'd grass,
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But where the dead leaf fell, there did it rest.
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A stream went voiceless by, still deadened more
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By reason of his fallen divinity
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Spreading a shade: the Naiad 'mid her reeds
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Press'd her cold finger closer to her lips.
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Along the margin-sand large foot-marks went,
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No further than to where his feet had stray'd,
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And slept there since. Upon the sodden ground
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His old right hand lay nerveless, listless, dead,
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Unsceptred; and his realmless eyes were closed;
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While his bow'd head seem'd list'ning to the Earth,
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His ancient mother, for some comfort yet.
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It seem'd no force could wake him from his place;
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But there came one, who with a kindred hand
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Touch'd his wide shoulders, after bending low
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With reverence, though to one who knew it not.
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She was a Goddess of the infant world;
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By her in stature the tall Amazon
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Had stood a pigmy's height; she would have ta'en
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Achilles by the hair and bent his neck;
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Or with a finger stay'd Ixion's wheel.
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Her face was large as that of Memphian sphinx,
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Pedestal'd haply in a palace court,
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When sages look'd to Egypt for their lore.
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But oh! how unlike marble was that face:
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How beautiful, if sorrow had not made
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Sorrow more beautiful than Beauty's self.
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There was a listening fear in her regard,
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As if calamity had but begun;
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As if the vanward clouds of evil days
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Had spent their malice, and the sullen rear
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Was with its stored thunder labouring up.
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One hand she press'd upon that aching spot
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Where beats the human heart, as if just there,
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Though an immortal, she felt cruel pain:
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The other upon Saturn's bended neck
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She laid, and to the level of his ear
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Leaning with parted lips, some words she spake
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In solemn tenour and deep organ tone:
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Some mourning words, which in our feeble tongue
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Would come in these like accents; O how frail
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To that large utterance of the early Gods!
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"Saturn, look up!- though wherefore, poor old King?
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"I have no comfort for thee, no not one:
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"I cannot say, 'O wherefore sleepest thou?'
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"For heaven is parted from thee, and the earth
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"Knows thee not, thus afflicted, for a God;
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"And ocean too, with all its solemn noise,
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"Has from thy sceptre pass'd; and all the air
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"Is emptied of thine hoary majesty.
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"Thy thunder, conscious of the new command,
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"Rumbles reluctant o'er our fallen house;
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"And thy sharp lightning in unpractis'd hands
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"Scorches and burns our once serene domain.
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"O aching time! O moments big as years!
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"All as ye pass swell out the monstrous truth,
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"And press it so upon our weary griefs
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"That unbelief has not a space to breathe.
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"Saturn, sleep on:- O thoughtless, why did I
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"Thus violate thy slumbrous solitude?
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"Why should I ope thy melancholy eyes?
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"Saturn, sleep on! while at thy feet I weep."
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As when, upon a tranced summer-night,
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Those green-rob'd senators of mighty woods,
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Tall oaks, branch-charmed by the earnest stars,
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Dream, and so dream all night without a stir,
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Save from one gradual solitary gust
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Which comes upon the silence, and dies off,
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As if the ebbing air had but one wave;
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So came these words and went; the while in tears
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She touch'd her fair large forehead to the ground,
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Just where her falling hair might be outspread
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A soft and silken mat for Saturn's feet.
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One moon, with alteration slow, had shed
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Her silver seasons four upon the night,
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And still these two were postured motionless,
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Like natural sculpture in cathedral cavern;
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The frozen God still couchant on the earth,
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And the sad Goddess weeping at his feet:
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Until at length old Saturn lifted up
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His faded eyes, and saw his kingdom gone,
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And all the gloom and sorrow of the place,
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And that fair kneeling Goddess; and then spake,
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As with a palsied tongue, and while his beard
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Shook horrid with such aspen-malady:
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"O tender spouse of gold Hyperion,
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"Thea, I feel thee ere I see thy face;
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"Look up, and let me see our doom in it;
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"Look up, and tell me if this feeble shape
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"Is Saturn's; tell me, if thou hear'st the voice
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"Of Saturn; tell me, if this wrinkling brow,
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"Naked and bare of its great diadem,
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"Peers like the front of Saturn. Who had power
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"To make me desolate? whence came the strength?
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"How was it nurtur'd to such bursting forth,
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"While Fate seem'd strangled in my nervous grasp?
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"But it is so; and I am smother'd up,
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"And buried from all godlike exercise
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"Of influence benign on planets pale,
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"Of admonitions to the winds and seas,
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"Of peaceful sway above man's harvesting,
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"And all those acts which Deity supreme
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"Doth ease its heart of love in.- I am gone
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"Away from my own bosom: I have left
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"My strong identity, my real self,
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"Somewhere between the throne, and where I sit
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"Here on this spot of earth. Search, Thea, search!
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"Open thine eyes eterne, and sphere them round
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"Upon all space: space starr'd, and lorn of light;
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"Space region'd with life-air; and barren void;
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"Spaces of fire, and all the yawn of hell.-
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"Search, Thea, search! and tell me, if thou seest
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"A certain shape or shadow, making way
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"With wings or chariot fierce to repossess
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"A heaven he lost erewhile: it must- it must
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"Be of ripe progress- Saturn must be King.
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"Yes, there must be a golden victory;
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"There must be Gods thrown down, and trumpets blown
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"Of triumph calm, and hymns of festival
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"Upon the gold clouds metropolitan,
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"Voices of soft proclaim, and silver stir
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"Of strings in hollow shells; and there shall be
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"Beautiful things made new, for the surprise
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"Of the sky-children; I will give command:
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"Thea! Thea! Thea! where is Saturn?"
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This passion lifted him upon his feet,
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And made his hands to struggle in the air,
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His Druid locks to shake and ooze with sweat,
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His eyes to fever out, his voice to cease.
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He stood, and heard not Thea's sobbing deep;
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A little time, and then again he snatch'd
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Utterance thus.- "But cannot I create?
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"Cannot I form? Cannot I fashion forth
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"Another world, another universe,
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"To overbear and crumble this to naught?
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"Where is another chaos? Where?"- That word
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Found way unto Olympus, and made quake
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The rebel three.- Thea was startled up,
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And in her bearing was a sort of hope,
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As thus she quick-voic'd spake, yet full of awe.
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"This cheers our fallen house: come to our friends,
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"O Saturn! come away, and give them heart;
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"I know the covert, for thence came I hither."
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Thus brief; then with beseeching eyes she went
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With backward footing through the shade a space:
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He follow'd, and she turn'd to lead the way
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Through aged boughs, that yielded like the mist
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Which eagles cleave upmounting from their nest.
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Meanwhile in other realms big tears were shed,
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More sorrow like to this, and such like woe,
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Too huge for mortal tongue or pen of scribe:
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The Titans fierce, self-hid, or prison-bound,
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Groan'd for the old allegiance once more,
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And listen'd in sharp pain for Saturn's voice.
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But one of the whole mammoth-brood still kept
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His sov'reignty, and rule, and majesty;-
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Blazing Hyperion on his orbed fire
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Still sat, still snuff'd the incense, teeming up
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From man to the sun's God; yet unsecure:
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For as among us mortals omens drear
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Fright and perplex, so also shuddered he-
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Not at dog's howl, or gloom-bird's hated screech,
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Or the familiar visiting of one
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Upon the first toll of his passing-bell,
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Or prophesyings of the midnight lamp;
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But horrors, portion'd to a giant nerve,
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Oft made Hyperion ache. His palace bright
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Bastion'd with pyramids of glowing gold,
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And touch'd with shade of bronzed obelisks,
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Glar'd a blood-red through all its thousand courts,
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Arches, and domes, and fiery galleries;
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And all its curtains of Aurorian clouds
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Flush'd angerly: while sometimes eagle's wings,
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Unseen before by Gods or wondering men,
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Darken'd the place; and neighing steeds were heard,
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Not heard before by Gods or wondering men.
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Also, when he would taste the spicy wreaths
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Of incense, breath'd aloft from sacred hills,
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Instead of sweets, his ample palate took
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Savour of poisonous brass and metal sick:
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And so, when harbour'd in the sleepy west,
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After the full completion of fair day,-
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For rest divine upon exalted couch
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And slumber in the arms of melody,
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He pac'd away the pleasant hours of ease
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With stride colossal, on from hall to hall;
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While far within each aisle and deep recess,
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His winged minions in close clusters stood,
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Amaz'd and full of fear; like anxious men
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Who on wide plains gather in panting troops,
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When earthquakes jar their battlements and towers.
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Even now, while Saturn, rous'd from icy trance,
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Went step for step with Thea through the woods,
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Hyperion, leaving twilight in the rear,
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Came slope upon the threshold of the west;
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Then, as was wont, his palace-door flew ope
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In smoothest silence, save what solemn tubes,
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Blown by the serious Zephyrs, gave of sweet
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And wandering sounds, slow-breathed melodies;
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And like a rose in vermeil tint and shape,
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In fragrance soft, and coolness to the eye,
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That inlet to severe magnificence
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Stood full blown, for the God to enter in.
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He enter'd, but he enter'd full of wrath;
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His flaming robes stream'd out beyond his heels,
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And gave a roar, as if of earthly fire,
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That scar'd away the meek ethereal Hours
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And made their dove-wings tremble. On he flared,
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From stately nave to nave, from vault to vault,
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Through bowers of fragrant and enwreathed light,
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And diamond-paved lustrous long arcades,
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Until he reach'd the great main cupola;
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There standing fierce beneath, he stamped his foot,
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And from the basement deep to the high towers
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Jarr'd his own golden region; and before
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The quavering thunder thereupon had ceas'd,
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His voice leapt out, despite of godlike curb,
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To this result: "O dreams of day and night!
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"O monstrous forms! O effigies of pain!
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"O spectres busy in a cold, cold gloom!
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"O lank-ear'd Phantoms of black-weeded pools!
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"Why do I know ye? why have I seen ye? why
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"Is my eternal essence thus distraught
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"To see and to behold these horrors new?
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"Saturn is fallen, am I too to fall?
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"Am I to leave this haven of my rest,
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"This cradle of my glory, this soft clime,
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"This calm luxuriance of blissful light,
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"These crystalline pavilions, and pure fanes,
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"Of all my lucent empire? It is left
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"Deserted, void, nor any haunt of mine.
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"The blaze, the splendour, and the symmetry,
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"I cannot see- but darkness, death and darkness.
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"Even here, into my centre of repose,
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"The shady visions come to domineer,
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"Insult, and blind, and stifle up my pomp.-
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"Fall!- No, by Tellus and her briny robes!
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"Over the fiery frontier of my realms
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"I will advance a terrible right arm
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"Shall scare that infant thunderer, rebel Jove,
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"And bid old Saturn take his throne again."-
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He spake, and ceas'd, the while a heavier threat
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Held struggle with his throat but came not forth;
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For as in theatres of crowded men
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Hubbub increases more they call out "Hush!"
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So at Hyperion's words the Phantoms pale
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Bestirr'd themselves, thrice horrible and cold;
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And from the mirror'd level where he stood
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A mist arose, as from a scummy marsh.
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At this, through all his bulk an agony
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Crept gradual, from the feet unto the crown,
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Like a lithe serpent vast and muscular
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Making slow way, with head and neck convuls'd
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From over-strained might. Releas'd, he fled
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To the eastern gates, and full six dewy hours
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Before the dawn in season due should blush,
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He breath'd fierce breath against the sleepy portals,
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Clear'd them of heavy vapours, burst them wide
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Suddenly on the ocean's chilly streams.
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The planet orb of fire, whereon he rode
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Each day from east to west the heavens through,
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Spun round in sable curtaining of clouds;
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Not therefore veiled quite, blindfold, and hid,
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But ever and anon the glancing spheres,
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Circles, and arcs, and broad-belting colure,
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Glow'd through, and wrought upon the muffling dark
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Sweet-shaped lightnings from the nadir deep
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Up to the zenith,- hieroglyphics old
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Which sages and keen-eyed astrologers
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Then living on the earth, with labouring thought
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Won from the gaze of many centuries:
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Now lost, save what we find on remnants huge
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Of stone, or marble swart; their import gone,
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Their wisdom long since fled.- Two wings this orb
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Possess'd for glory, two fair argent wings,
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Ever exalted at the God's approach:
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And now, from forth the gloom their plumes immense
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Rose, one by one, till all outspreaded were;
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While still the dazzling globe maintain'd eclipse,
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Awaiting for Hyperion's command.
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Fain would he have commanded, fain took throne
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And bid the day begin, if but for change.
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He might not:- No, though a primeval God:
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The sacred seasons might not be disturb'd.
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Therefore the operations of the dawn
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Stay'd in their birth, even as here 'tis told.
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Those silver wings expanded sisterly,
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Eager to sail their orb; the porches wide
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Open'd upon the dusk demesnes of night;
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And the bright Titan, phrenzied with new woes,
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Unus'd to bend, by hard compulsion bent
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His spirit to the sorrow of the time;
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And all along a dismal rack of clouds,
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Upon the boundaries of day and night,
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He stretch'd himself in grief and radiance faint.
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There as he lay, the Heaven with its stars
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Look'd down on him with pity, and the voice
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Of Coelus, from the universal space,
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Thus whisper'd low and solemn in his ear.
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"O brightest of my children dear, earth-born
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"And sky-engendered, Son of Mysteries
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"All unrevealed even to the powers
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"Which met at thy creating; at whose joys
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"And palpitations sweet, and pleasures soft,
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"I, Coelus, wonder, how they came and whence;
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"And at the fruits thereof what shapes they be,
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"Distinct, and visible; symbols divine,
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"Manifestations of that beauteous life
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"Diffus'd unseen throughout eternal space:
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"Of these new-form'd art thou, oh brightest child!
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"Of these, thy brethren and the Goddesses!
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"There is sad feud among ye, and rebellion
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"Of son against his sire. I saw him fall,
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"I saw my first-born tumbled from his throne!
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"To me his arms were spread, to me his voice
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"Found way from forth the thunders round his head!
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"Pale wox I, and in vapours hid my face.
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"Art thou, too, near such doom? vague fear there is:
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"For I have seen my sons most unlike Gods.
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"Divine ye were created, and divine
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"In sad demeanour, solemn, undisturb'd,
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"Unruffled, like high Gods, ye liv'd and ruled:
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"Now I behold in you fear, hope, and wrath;
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"Actions of rage and passion; even as
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"I see them, on the mortal world beneath,
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"In men who die.- This is the grief, O Son!
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"Sad sign of ruin, sudden dismay, and fall!
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"Yet do thou strive; as thou art capable,
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"As thou canst move about, an evident God;
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"And canst oppose to each malignant hour
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"Ethereal presence:- I am but a voice;
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"My life is but the life of winds and tides,
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"No more than winds and tides can I avail:-
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"But thou canst.- Be thou therefore in the van
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"Of circumstance; yea, seize the arrow's barb
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"Before the tense string murmur.- To the earth!
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"For there thou wilt find Saturn, and his woes.
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"Meantime I will keep watch on thy bright sun,
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"And of thy seasons be a careful nurse."-
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Ere half this region-whisper had come down,
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Hyperion arose, and on the stars
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Lifted his curved lids, and kept them wide
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Until it ceas'd; and still he kept them wide:
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And still they were the same bright, patient stars.
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Then with a slow incline of his broad breast,
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Like to a diver in the pearly seas,
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Forward he stoop'd over the airy shore,
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And plung'd all noiseless into the deep night.
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BOOK II.
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Just at the self-same beat of Time's wide wings
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Hyperion slid into the rustled air,
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And Saturn gain'd with Thea that sad place
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Where Cybele and the bruised Titans mourn'd.
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It was a den where no insulting light
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Could glimmer on their tears; where their own groans
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They felt, but heard not, for the solid roar
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Of thunderous waterfalls and torrents hoarse,
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Pouring a constant bulk, uncertain where.
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Crag jutting forth to crag, and rocks that seem'd
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Ever as if just rising from a sleep,
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Forehead to forehead held their monstrous horns;
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And thus in thousand hugest phantasies
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Made a fit roofing to this nest of woe.
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Instead of thrones, hard flint they sat upon,
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Couches of rugged stone, and slaty ridge
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Stubborn'd with iron. All were not assembled:
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Some chain'd in torture, and some wandering.
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Coeus, and Gyges, and Briareus,
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Typhon, and Dolor, and Porphyrion,
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With many more, the brawniest in assault,
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Were pent in regions of laborious breath;
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Dungeon'd in opaque element, to keep
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Their clenched teeth still clench'd, and all their limbs
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Lock'd up like veins of metal, crampt and screw'd;
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Without a motion, save of their big hearts
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Heaving in pain, and horribly convuls'd
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With sanguine feverous boiling gurge of pulse.
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Mnemosyne was straying in the world;
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Far from her moon had Phoebe wandered;
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And many else were free to roam abroad,
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But for the main, here found they covert drear.
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Scarce images of life, one here, one there,
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Lay vast and edgeways; like a dismal cirque
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Of Druid stones, upon a forlorn moor,
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When the chill rain begins at shut of eve,
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In dull November, and their chancel vault,
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The Heaven itself, is blinded throughout night.
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Each one kept shroud, nor to his neighbour gave
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Or word, or look, or action of despair.
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Creus was one; his ponderous iron mace
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Lay by him, and a shatter'd rib of rock
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Told of his rage, ere he thus sank and pined.
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Iapetus another; in his grasp,
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A serpent's plashy neck; its barbed tongue
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Squeez'd from the gorge, and all its uncurl'd length
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Dead; and because the creature could not spit
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Its poison in the eyes of conquering Jove.
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Next Cottus: prone he lay, chin uppermost,
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As though in pain; for still upon the flint
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He ground severe his skull, with open mouth
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And eyes at horrid working. Nearest him
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Asia, born of most enormous Caf,
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Who cost her mother Tellus keener pangs,
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Though feminine, than any of her sons:
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More thought than woe was in her dusky face,
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For she was prophesying of her glory;
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And in her wide imagination stood
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Palm-shaded temples, and high rival fanes,
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By Oxus or in Ganges' sacred isles.
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Even as Hope upon her anchor leans,
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So leant she, not so fair, upon a tusk
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Shed from the broadest of her elephants.
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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 tiger-passion'd, lion-thoughted, 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 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 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,
|
|
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
|
|
"Sav'd from the shores of darkness, when the waves
|
|
"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-quarreling
|
|
"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, no- where can unriddle, though I search,
|
|
"And pore on Nature's universal scroll
|
|
"Even to swooning, why ye, Divinities,
|
|
"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!
|
|
"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
|
|
"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 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 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 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:
|
|
"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,
|
|
"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 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,
|
|
"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 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, hadst thou felt,
|
|
"Ye would not call this too indulged tongue
|
|
"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 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.
|
|
"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
|
|
"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,
|
|
"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,
|
|
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,
|
|
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, 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, "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 faint-lipp'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 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 wandered forth
|
|
Beside the osiers of a rivulet,
|
|
Full ankle-deep in lillies of the vale.
|
|
The nightingale had ceas'd, 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 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 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,
|
|
"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,
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"Like one who once had wings.- O why should I
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"Feel curs'd and thwarted, when the liegeless air
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"Yields to my step aspirant? why should I
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"Spurn the green turf as hateful to my feet?
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"Goddess benign, point forth some unknown thing:
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"Are there not other regions than this isle?
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"What are the stars? There is the sun, the sun!
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"And the most patient brilliance of the moon!
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"And stars by thousands! Point me out the way
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"To any one particular beauteous star,
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"And I will flit into it with my lyre
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"And make its silvery splendour pant with bliss.
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"I have heard the cloudy thunder: Where is power?
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"Whose hand, whose essence, what divinity
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"Makes this alarum in the elements,
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"While I here idle listen on the shores
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"In fearless yet in aching ignorance?
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"O tell me, lonely Goddess, by thy harp,
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"That waileth every morn and eventide,
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"Tell me why thus I rave, about these groves!
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"Mute thou remainest- mute! yet I can read
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"A wondrous lesson in thy silent face:
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"Knowledge enormous makes a God of me.
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"Names, deeds, grey legends, dire events, rebellions,
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"Majesties, sovran voices, agonies,
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"Creations and destroyings, all at once
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"Pour into the wide hollows of my brain,
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"And deify me, as if some blithe wine
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"Or bright elixir peerless I had drunk,
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"And so become immortal."- Thus the God,
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While his enkindled eyes, with level glance
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Beneath his white soft temples, stedfast kept
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Trembling with light upon Mnemosyne.
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Soon wild commotions shook him, and made flush
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All the immortal fairness of his limbs
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Into a hue more roseate than sweet pain
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Gives to a ravish'd Nymph when her warm tears
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Gush luscious with no sob. Or more severe,-
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|
More like the struggle at the gate of death;
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Or liker still to one who should take leave
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Of pale immortal death, and with a pang
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As hot as death's is chill, with fierce convulse
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Die into life: so young Apollo anguish'd:
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His very hair, his golden tresses famed
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Kept undulation round his eager neck.
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During the pain Mnemosyne upheld
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Her arms as one who prophesied.- At length
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Apollo shriek'd;- and lo! from all his limbs
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Celestial Glory dawn'd: he was a god!
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THE END
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.
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