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,' 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 He lean'd; not rising, from supreme contempt. "Or shall we listen to the over-wise,
Or to the over-foolish giant, Gods?
Not thunderbolt on thunderbolt, till all That rebel Jove's whole armoury were spent, Not world on world upon these shoulders piled, Could agonize me more than baby-words In midst of this dethronement horrible. Speak! roar! shout! yell! ye sleepy Titans all. Do ye forget the blows, the buffets vile? Are ye not smitten by a youngling arm? Dost thou forget, sham Monarch of the Waves, Thy scalding in the seas? What! have I roused Your spleens with so few simple words as these? O joy! for now I see ye are not lost:
O joy! for now I see a thousand eyes Wide glaring for revenge."
He lifted up his stature vast, and stood, Still without intermission speaking thus : "Now ye are flames, I'll tell you how to burn, And purge the ether of our enemies; How to feed fierce the crooked stings of fire, And singe away the swollen clouds of Jove, Stifling that puny essence in its tent.
O let him feel the evil he hath done; For though I scorn Oceanus's lore,
Much pain have I for more than loss of realms : The days of peace and slumberous calm are fled; Those days, all innocent of scathing war, When all the fair Existences of heaven Came open-eyed to guess what we would speak : That was before our brows were taught to frown, Before our lips knew else but solemn sounds; That was before we knew the winged thing, Victory, might be lost, or might be won. And be ye mindful that Hyperion, Our brightest brother, still is undisgraced Hyperion, lo! his radiance is here!"
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 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 splendour, like the mora, 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 staid 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 Memnon's harp, He utter'd, while his hands, contemplative, He press'd together, and in silence stood. Despondence seized 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 Creus too,
And Phorcus, sea-born, and together strode To where he tower'd on his eminence.
There those four shouted forth old Saturn's name; Hyperion from the peak loud answer'd "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!"
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 bewilder'd 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 air, And let the clouds of even and of morn Float in voluptuous fleeces o'er the hills; Let the red wine within the goblet boil, Cold as a bubbling well; let faint-lipp'd shells, On sands or in great deeps, vermilion turn Through all their labyrinths; and let the maid Blush keenly, as with some warm kiss surprised. Chief isle of the embowered Cyclades, Rejoice, O Delos, with thine olives green,
And poplars, and lawn-shading palms, and beech, In which the Zephyr breathes the loudest song, And hazels thick, dark-stemm❜d beneath the shade : Apollo is once more the golden theme!
Where was he, when the Giant of the Sun Stood bright, amid the sorrow of his peers? Together had he left his mother fair
And his twin-sister sleeping in their bower, And in the morning twilight wander❜d forth Beside the osiers of a rivulet,
Full ankle-deep in lilies of the vale.
The nightingale had ceased, 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 camest thou over the unfooted sea? Or hath that antique mien and robed form Moved 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, and still the whisper pass'd. Goddess! I have beheld those eyes before, And their eternal calm, and all that face, Or I have dream'd." "Yes," said the supreme shape,
"Thou hast dream'd of me; and awaking up Didst find a lyre all golden by thy side,
Whose strings touch'd by thy fingers, all the vast Unwearied ear of the whole universe
Listen'd in pain and pleasure at the birth
Of such new tuneful wonder. Is't not strange That thou shouldst weep, so gifted? Tell me, youth, 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,
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