235

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. 240
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

Distinct, and visible, - symbols divine, Manifestations of that beauteous life Diffused unseen throughout eternal space! Of these new-formed art thou, O brightest child!

And of thy seasons be a careful nurse."

320

desses! There is sad feud among ye, and rebellion 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!

325

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, undisturbed, 330 Unruffled, like high gods, ye lived 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!

335

350

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

Just at the self-same beat of Time's wide wings,

Hyperion slid into the rustled air,

And Saturn gained with Thea that sad place

Where Cybele and the bruised Titans mourned.

It was a den where no insulting light 5 Could glimmer on their tears; where their own groans

They felt, but heard not, for the solid

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, 35 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 neighbor gave

Or word, or look, or action of despair. 40

60

For she was prophesying of her glory;
And in her wide imagination stood
Palm-shaded temples, and high rival fanes,
By Oxus or in Ganges' sacred isles.
Even as Hope upon her anchor leans,
So leant she, not so fair, upon a tusk
Shed from the broadest of her elephants.
Above her, on a crag's uneasy shelve,
Upon his elbow raised, all prostrate
else,
Shadowed Enceladus; once tame and mild
As grazing ox unworried in the meads;
Now tiger-passioned, lion-thoughted,

wroth,

65

To hide themselves in forms of beast and bird.

Nor far hence Atlas; and beside him prone

Phorcus, the sire of Gorgons. Neighbored close

75

Oceanus, and Tethys, in whose lap
Sobbed 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