Each one kept shroud, nor to his neighbour In midst of all lay Themis, at the feet Of Ops the queen all clouded round from sight; gave 40 Or word, or look, or action of despair. Creus was one; his ponderous iron mace Lay by him, and a shatter'd rib of rock Told of his rage, ere he thus sank and pined. Iapetus another; in his grasp, A serpent's plashy neck; its barbed tongue Squeezed from the gorge, and all its uncurl❜d length Dead; and because the creature could not spit Its poison in the eyes of conquering Jove. Next Cottus: prone he lay, chin uppermost, As though in pain: for still upon the flint 50 He ground severe his skull, with open month And eyes at horrid working. Nearest him Asia, born of most enormous Caf, Who cost her mother Tellus keener pangs, Though feminine, than any of her sons: More thought than woe was in her dusky face, 60 For she was prophesying of her glory; Upon the precincts of this nest of pain, 90 And sidelong fix'd her eye on Saturn's face: There saw she direst strife; the supreme God At war with all the frailty of grief, Of rage, of fear, anxiety, revenge, Remorse, spleen, hope, but most of all despair. Against these plagues he strove in vain: for Fate Had pour'd a mortal oil upon his head, As with us mortal men, the laden heart Is persecuted more, and fever'd more, When it is nighing to the mournful house Where other hearts are sick of the same bruise; So Saturn, as he walk'd into the midst, Felt faint, and would have sunk among the rest, But that he met Enceladus's eye, And the which book ye know I ever kept For my firm-based footstool: - Ah, in 141 firm! 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, 151 Can I find reason why ye should be thus: Should cower beneath what, in comparison, O Titans, shall I say "Arise!" - Ye Yet listen, ye who will, whilst I bring A power more strong in beauty, born of us proof How ye, perforce, must be content to stoop; Of thunder, or of Jove. Great Saturn, thou And fated to excel us, as we pass In glory that old Darkness: nor are we Thereby more conquer'd, than by us the rule Of shapeless Chaos. Say, doth the dull soil 221 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-feather'd, who do tower Above us in their beauty, and must reign In right thereof; for 't is the eternal law That first in beauty should be first in might: 229 Yea, by that law, another race may drive 241 Give consolation in this woe extreme. Receive the truth, and let it be your balm.' Whether through poz'd conviction, or disdain, 270 Full of calm joy it was, as I of grief; That did both drown and keep alive my ears. I threw my shell away upon the sand, | A living death was in each gush of sounds, Each family of rapturous hurried notes, That fell, one after one, yet all at once, Like pearl beads dropping sudden from their string: And then another, then another strain, Each like a dove leaving its olive perch, With music wing'd instead of silent plumes, 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, 290 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.' 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. The misery his brilliance had betray'd Of Memnon's image at the set of sun 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, 380 And many hid their faces from the light: But fierce Enceladus sent forth his eyes Among the brotherhood; and, at their glare, Uprose Iäpetus, and Creus too, And Phorcus, sea-born, and together strode |