Blown by the serious Zephyrs, gave of sweet And wandering sounds, slow-breathed melodies; And like a rose in vermeil tint and shape, He enter'd, but he enter'd full of wrath; His flaming robes stream'd out beyond his 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 enwreathed light, And diamond-paved lustrous long ar cades, Until he reach'd the great main cupola; curb, To this result: "O dreams of day and night! O monstrous forms! O effigies of pain! Why do I know ye? why have I seen ye? why Is my eternal essence thus distraught Of all my lucent empire? It is left I cannot see-but darkness, death and darkness. Even here, into my centre of repose, 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 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 Forehead to forehead held their monstrous 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 assembled: Some chain'd in torture, and some wandering. Coeus, and Gyges, and Briareüs, Were pent in regions of laborious breath; 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. pangs, mother Tellus keener Though feminine, than any of her sons: More thought than woe was in her dusky face, For she was prophesying of her glory; By Oxus or in Ganges' sacred isles. As grazing ox unworried in the meads; wroth, Till on the level height their steps found ease: Then Thea spread abroad her trembling arms Upon the precincts of this nest of pain, And sidelong fix'd her eye on Saturn's face: There saw she direst strife; the supreme At war with all the frailty of grief, Against these plagues he strove in vain; for Fate Had pour'd a mortal oil upon his head, A disanointing poison: so that Thea, Affrighted, kept her still, and let him pass First onwards in, among the fallen tribe. 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, infirm! 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 rainfloods 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 comparison. Is untremendous might. Yet ye are here, O'erwhelm'd, and spurn'd, and batter'd, ye are here! O Titans, shall I say Arise!'-Ye groan; O Heaven wide! O unseen parent dear! 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!" 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-endeavoring 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, 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 |