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 itsjoys? 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

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

6

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 [contempt.

He lean'd; not rising, from supreme

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 splendor, 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 Mem-
non's harp
[tive
He utter'd, while his hands contempla-
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 Creüs too,

And Phorcus, sea-born, and together strode

To where he towered on his eminence. There those four shouted forth old

Saturn's name ;

Hyperion from the peak loud answered, "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

And in the morning twilight wandered forth

Beside the osiers of a rivulet,

Full ankle-deep in lilies 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. [fore, Goddess! I have beheld those eyes beAnd their eternal calm, and all that face, Or I have dream'd."- -"Yes," said the

What sorrow thou canst feel; for I am sad

When thou dost shed a tear explain

thy griefs

To one who in this lonely isle hath been The watcher of thy sleep and hours of life,

From the young day when first thy infant hand

Pluck'd witless the weak flowers, till thine arm

Could bend that bow heroic to all times. Show thy heart's secret to an ancient Power

Who hath forsaken old and sacred thrones

For prophecies of thee, and for the sake Of loveliness new born."--Apollo then, With sudden scrutiny and gloomless eyes, Thus answer'd, while his white melodious throat

Throbb'd with the syllables.—“ Mnemosyne!

Thy name is on my tongue, I know not how:

Why should I tell thee what thou so well seest?

Why should I strive to show what from thy lips

Would come no mystery? For me, dark, dark,

And painful vile oblivion seals my eyes: I strive to search wherefore I am so sad, Until a melancholy numbs my limbs ; And then upon the grass I sit, and moan, Like one who once had wings.-O why should I

Feel curs'd and thwarted, when the liegeless air

Yields to my step aspirant? why

should I

To any one particular beauteous star,
And I will fit into it with my lyre,
And make its silvery splendor pant with
bliss.

I have heard the cloudy thunder:
Where is power?