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 Savor of poisonous brass and metal sick : And so, when harbord 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, flis 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 palace-door flew

ope In smoothest silence, save what solemn

tubes, Blown by the serious Zephyrs, gave of

sweet And wandering sounds, slow-breathed

melodies ; And like a rose in vermeil tint and shape, 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

bis heels, And gave a roar, as if of earthly fire. That scar'd away the meek ethereal

Hours And made their dove-wings tremble.

On he flared, From stately nave to nave, from vault

to vault, Through bowers of fragrant and en

wreathed light, And diamond-pared lustrous long ar

cades, Until he reach'd the great main cupola;

There standing fierce beneath, he

stamped his foot, And from the basements deep to the bigh

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 ! O spectres busy in a cold, cold gloom ! O lank-eard Phantoms of black-weeded

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 splendor, and the sym

metry, 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

Jore, 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

ear.

Like a lithe serpent vast and muscular Making slow way, with head and neck

convuls'd From over-strained might. Releas'd, he

fled To the eastern gates, and full six dewy

hours Before the dawn in season due should

blush, He breath'd fierce breath against the

sleepy portals. Clear'd them of heavy vapors, 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 broad-belting

colure, Glow'd through, and wrought upon the

muffling dark Sweet-shaped lightnings from the nadir

deep Up to the zenith,-hieroglyphics old, Which sages and keen-eyed astrologers Then living on the earth, with laboring

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 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 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 ra of clouds, Upon the boundaries of day and night, He stretch'd himself in grief and radi

ance 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 “O brightest of my children dear, earth

born And sky-engendered, Son of Mysteries All unrevealed even to the powers Which met at thy creating; at whose joy And palpitations sweet, and pleasures

soft, I, Cælus, wonder, how they came and

whence ; And at the fruits thereof what shapes

they be, Distinct, and visible ; symbols divine, Manifestations of that beauteous life Diffus'd unseen throughout eternal

space; Of these new-form'd art thou, oh

brightest child ! Of these, thy brethren and the God

desses ! There is sad feud among ye, and rebel

lion Of son against his sire. I saw him fall, I saw my first-born tumbled from his

throne ! To me his arms were spread, to me his

voice Found way from forth the thunders

round his head! Pale wox I and in vapors 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 demeanor, solemn, undisturbid, Unruffled, like high Gods, ye livid 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. Meantiine I will keep watch on thy

bright sun, And of thy seasons be a careful

9

nurse.

Forehead to forehead held their mon

strous 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 as

sembled : Some chain'd in torture, and some wan

dering. Cous, and Gyges, and Briareus, Typhon, and Dolor, and Porphyrion, With many more, the brawniest in as

sault, 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 wan

dered ; 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 neigli

Ere half this region-whisper 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 : 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

bor gave

Just at the self-same 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'a Ever as if just rising from a sleep,

Or word, or look, or action of despair. Creüs 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. läpetus 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.

[most, Next Cottus : prone he lay. chin upper

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!”

Such noise is like the roar of bleak

grown pines ; Which, when it ceases in this mount

ain'd world, No other sound succeeds ; but ceasing

here, Among these fallen, Saturn's voice there

from 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, in

firm ! Not there, nor in sign, symbol, or portent Of element, earth, water, air, and fire,At war, at peace, or inter-quarrelling One against one, or two, or three, or all Each several one against the other three, As fire with air loud warring when rain

floods Drown both, and press them both against

earth's face, Where, finding sulphur, a quadruple

wrath Unhinges the poor world ;-not in that

strife, Wherefrom I take strange lore, and read

it deep, Can I find reason why ye should be thus: No, 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 com

parison, Is untremendous might. Yet ye are

here, O’erwhelm’d, and spurn'd, and batter'd,

ye are here ! O Titaus, shall I say · Arise !'- Yegroan : Shall I

say

• Crouch!'-Ye groan. What can I then ? O Heaveu wide! O unseen parent dear!

So ended Saturn; and the God of the

Sea, Sophist and sage, from no Athenian

grove, But cogitation in his watery shades, A rose, with locks not oozy, and began, In murmurs, which his first-endeavor.

ing tongue Caught infant-like from the far foamed

sands. “Oye, 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 And with it light, and light, engender

ing

came,