While

105

How was it nurtured to such bursting
forth,
Fate seemed strangled in my
nervous grasp?
But it is so; and I am smothered up,
And buried from all godlike exercise
Of influence benign on planets pale,
Of admonitions to the winds, and seas, 109
Of peaceful sway above man's harvesting,
And all those acts which Deity supreme
Doth ease its heart of love in.—I am gone
Away from my own bosom: I have left
My strong identity, my real self,
Somewhere between the throne, and where
I sit

115

115

Thus brief; then with beseeching eyes she went

With backward footing through the shade a space:

He followed, and she turned to lead the way

155

Through aged boughs, that yielded like the

mist

Which eagles cleave upmounting from their nest.

Meanwhile in other realms big tears were

shed,

More sorrow like to this, and such like woe, Too huge for mortal tongue or pen of

The Titans fierce, self-hid, or prison-bound, Groaned for the old allegiance once more, And listened in sharp pain for Saturn's voice.

But one of the whole mammoth-brood still kept 164

His sov'reignty, and rule, and majesty;

secure:

For as among us mortals omens drear 169 Fright and perplex, so also shuddered he Not at dog's howl, or gloom-bird's hated screech,

Or the familiar visiting of one

Upon the first toll of his passing-bell,
Or prophesyings of the midnight lamp; 174
But horrors, portioned to a giant nerve,
Oft made Hyperion ache. His palace
bright

Bastioned with pyramids of glowing gold. And touched with shade of bronzèd obelisks,

Glared a blood-red through all its thousand courts,

Arches, and domes, and fiery galleries; 180 And all its curtains of Aurorian clouds Flushed angerly: while sometimes eagle's wings,

Unseen before by Gods or wondering men, Darkened the place; and neighing steeds were heard,

Not heard before by Gods or wondering 185

men.

Is my eternal essence thus distraught
To see and to behold these horrors new?
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 symmetry,
I cannot see but darkness, death and dark-

ness.

244

Even here, into my center of repose,
The shady visions come to domineer,
Insult, and blind, and stifle up my pomp.-
Fall! No, by Tellus and her briny robes!
Over the fiery frontier of my realms
I will advance a terrible right arm, 248
Shall scare that infant thunderer, rebel Jove,

And bid the day begin, if but for change. He might not: - No, though a primeval God:

The sacred seasons might not be disturbed.
Therefore the operations of the dawn
Stayed in their birth, even as here 't is told.
Those silver wings expanded sisterly, 296
Eager to sail their orb; the porches wide
Opened upon the dusk demesnes of night;
And the bright Titan, phrenzied with new
woes,

Unused to bend, by hard compulsion bent
His spirit to the sorrow of the time; 301
And all along a dismal rack of clouds,
Upon the boundaries of day and night,
He stretched himself in grief and radiance
faint.

There as he lay, the Heaven with its stars Looked down on him with pity, and the voice

306