Forest on forest hung about his head
Like cloud on cloud. No stir of air was there, Not so much life as on a summer's day
Robs not one light seed from the feathered grass, But where the dead leaf fell, there did it rest. A stream went voiceless by, still deadened more By reason of his fallen divinity
Spreading a shade: the Naiad 'mid her reeds Pressed her cold finger closer to her lips.
Along the margin-sand large foot-marks went, No further than to where his feet had strayed, And slept there since. Upon the sodden ground His old right hand lay nerveless, listless, dead, Unsceptred; and his realmless eyes were closed; While his bowed head seem'd listening to the Earth, His ancient mother, for some comfort yet.
It seem'd no force could wake him from his place; But there came one, who with a kindred hand Touched his wide shoulders, after bending low With reverence, though to one who knew it not. She was a Goddess of the infant world; By her in stature the tall Amazon
Had stood a pigmy's height: she would have ta'en Achilles by the hair and bent his neck; Or with a finger stayed Ixion's wheel.
Her face was large as that of Memphian sphinx, Pedestal'd haply in a palace-court, When sages look'd to Egypt for their lore. But oh how unlike marble was that face: How beautiful, if sorrow had not made Sorrow more beautiful than Beauty's self. There was a listening fear in her regard, As if calamity had but begun ; As if the vanward clouds of evil days Had spent their malice, and the sullen rear Was with its stored thunder labouring up. One hand she pressed upon that aching spot
Where beats the human heart, as if just there, Though an immortal, she felt cruel pain: The other upon Saturn's bended neck She laid, and to the level of his ear
Leaning with parted lips, some words she spake In solemn tenour and deep organ tone: Some mourning words, which in our feeble tongue Would come in these like accents; O how frail To that large utterance of the early Gods!
'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 joys, And palpitations sweet, and pleasures soft, I, Cœlus, 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
Diffused unseen throughout eternal space; Of these new-formed art thou, O brightest child! Of these, thy brethren and the Goddesses! There is sad feud among ye, and rebellion Of son against his sire. I saw him fall,
I saw my firstborn 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 vapours 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 demeanour, solemn, undisturbed, 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! 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. 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 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 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 looked upon them all, And in each face he saw a gleam of light, But splendider in Saturn's, whose hoar locks
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