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.-1 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 region-whisper had come down Hyperion arose, and on the stars
Lifted his curved lids, and kept them wide
Until it ceased; 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 stooped over the airy shore, And plunged all noiseless into the deep night.
[From Hyperion, Book II.]
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 sa ds. '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 touched 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 conquered 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-feathered, 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 enforced 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.'
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 locked 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 remained, 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 touched, and there he stayed to view The misery his brilliance had betrayed
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 uttered, while his hands, contemplative, He pressed together, and in silence stood.
[From The Eve of St. Agnes.]
THE FLIGHT.
Full on this casement shone the wintry moon, And threw warm gules on Madeline's fair breast, As down she knelt for heaven's grace and boon; Rose-bloom fell on her hands, together prest, And on her silver cross soft amethyst,
And on her hair a glory, like a saint: She seem'd a splendid angel, newly drest, Save wings, for heaven :-Porphyro grew faint: She knelt, so pure a thing, so free from mortal taint
Anon his heart revives: her vespers done, Of all its wreathed pearls her hair she frees Unclasps her warmed jewels one by one; Loosens her fragrant boddice; by degrees Her rich attire creeps rustling to her knees: Half-hidden, like a mermaid in sea-weed, Pensive awhile she dreams awake, and sees, In fancy, fair St. Agnes in her bed,
But dares not look behind, or all the charm is fled.
Soon, trembling in her soft and chilly nest, In sort of wakeful swoon, perplexed she lay, Until the poppied warmth of sleep oppressed Her soothed limbs, and soul fatigued away; Flown, like a thought, until the morrow-day; Blissfully havened both from joy and pain; Clasped like a missal where swart Paynims pray: Blinded alike from sunshine and from rain, As though a rose should shut, and be a bud again.
Stolen to this paradise, and so entranced, Porphyro gazed upon her empty dress, And listened to her breathing, if it chanced To wake into a slumberous tenderness;
Which when he heard, that minute did he bless,
And breathed himself: then from the closet crept, Noiseless as fear in a wide wilderness,
And over the hushed carpet, silent, stept,
And 'tween the curtains peeped, where, lo!-how fast sh slept.
Then by the bed-side, where the faded moon Made a dim, silver twilight, soft he set
A table, and, half anguished, threw thereon A cloth of woven crimson, gold, and jet :- O for some drowsy Morphean amulet ! The boisterous, midnight, festive clarion, The kettle-drum, and far-heard clarionet, Affray his ears, though but in dying tone :— The hall-door shuts again, and all the noise is gone
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