Blown by the serious Zephyrs, gave of sweet

And wandering sounds, slow-breathed melodies;

And like a rose in vermeil tint and shape,
In fragrance soft, and coolness to the eye,
That inlet to severe magnificence
Stood full blown, for the God to enter in.

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!
O spectres busy in a cold, cold gloom!
O lank-ear'd Phantoms of black-weeded
pools!

Why do I know ye? why have I seen ye? why

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.
The blaze, the splendor, and the sym-
metry,

I cannot see-but darkness, death and darkness.

Even here, into my centre of repose,
The shady visions come to domineer,
Insult, and blind, and stifle up my

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,
Typhon, and Dolor, and Porphyrion,
With many more, the brawniest in as
sault,

Were pent in regions of laborious breath;
Dungeon'd in opaque element, to keep
Their clenched teeth still clench'd, and
- all their limbs

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;
And in her wide imagination stood
Palm-shaded temples, and high rival
fanes,

By Oxus or in Ganges' sacred isles.
Even as Hope upon her anchor leans,
So leant she, not so fair, upon a tusk
Shed from the broadest of her elephants.
Above her, on a crag's uneasy shelve,
Upon his elbow rais'd, all prostrate else,
Shadow'd Enceladus; once tame and
mild

As grazing ox unworried in the meads;
Now tiger-passion'd, lion-thoughted,

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
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, 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;
Shall I say
· Crouch !'-Ye groan.
What can I then ?

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,
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