Hyperion, Book II

Just at the self-same beat of Time's wide wingsHyperion slid into the rustled air,And Saturn gain'd with Thea that sad placeWhere Cybele and the bruised Titans mourn'd.It was a den where no insulting lightCould glimmer on their tears; where their own groansThey felt, but heard not, for the solid roarOf thunderous waterfalls and torrents hoarse,Pouring a constant bulk, uncertain where.Crag jutting forth to crag, and rocks that seem'dEver as if just rising from a sleep,Forehead to forehead held their monstrous horns;And thus in thousand hugest phantasiesMade a fit roofing to this nest of woe.Instead of thrones, hard flint they sat upon,Couches of rugged stone, and slaty ridgeStubborn'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 assault,Were pent in regions of laborious breath;Dungeon'd in opaque element, to keepTheir clenched teeth still clench'd, and all their limbsLock'd up like veins of metal, crampt and screw'd;Without a motion, save of their big heartsHeaving in pain, and horribly convuls'dWith sanguine feverous boiling gurge of pulse.Mnemosyne was straying in the world;Far from her moon had Phoebe wandered;And many else were free to roam abroad,But for the main, here found they covert drear.Scarce images of life, one here, one there,Lay vast and edgeways; like a dismal cirqueOf Druid stones, upon a forlorn moor,When the chill rain begins at shut of eve,In dull November, and their chancel vault,The Heaven itself, is blinded throughout night.Each one kept shroud, nor to his neighbour gaveOr word, or look, or action of despair.Creüs was one; his ponderous iron maceLay by him, and a shatter'd rib of rockTold of his rage, ere he thus sank and pined.Iäpetus another; in his grasp,A serpent's plashy neck; its barbed tongueSqueez'd from the gorge, and all its uncurl'd lengthDead; and because the creature could not spitIts poison in the eyes of conquering Jove.Next Cottus: prone he lay, chin uppermost,As though in pain; for still upon the flintHe ground severe his skull, with open mouthAnd eyes at horrid working. Nearest himAsia, 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,For she was prophesying of her glory;And in her wide imagination stoodPalm-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 tuskShed 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 mildAs grazing ox unworried in the meads;Now tiger-passion'd, lion-thoughted, wroth,He meditated, plotted, and even nowWas hurling mountains in that second war,Not long delay'd, that scar'd the younger GodsTo hide themselves in forms of beast and bird.Not far hence Atlas; and beside him pronePhorcus, the sire of Gorgons. Neighbour'd closeOceanus, and Tethys, in whose lapSobb'd Clymene among her tangled hair.In midst of all lay Themis, at the feetOf Ops the queen all clouded round from sight;No shape distinguishable, more than whenThick night confounds the pine-tops with the clouds:And many else whose names may not be told.For when the Muse's wings are air-ward spread,Who shall delay her flight? And she must chauntOf Saturn, and his guide, who now had climb'dWith damp and slippery footing from a depthMore horrid still. Above a sombre cliffTheir heads appear'd, and up their stature grewTill on the level height their steps found ease:Then Thea spread abroad her trembling armsUpon the precincts of this nest of pain,And sidelong fix'd her eye on Saturn's face:There saw she direst strife; the supreme GodAt 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 FateHad pour'd a mortal oil upon his head,A disanointing poison: so that Thea,Affrighted, kept her still, and let him passFirst onwards in, among the fallen tribe.

As with us mortal men, the laden heartIs persecuted more, and fever'd more,When it is nighing to the mournful houseWhere 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,Whose mightiness, and awe of him, at onceCame like an inspiration; and he shouted,"Titans, behold your God!" at which some groan'd;Some started on their feet; some also shouted;Some wept, some wail'd, all bow'd with reverence;And Ops, uplifting her black folded veil,Show'd her pale cheeks, and all her forehead wan,Her eye-brows thin and jet, and hollow eyes.There is a roaring in the bleak-grown pinesWhen Winter lifts his voice; there is a noiseAmong immortals when a God gives sign,With hushing finger, how he means to loadHis tongue with the full weight of utterless thought,With thunder, and with music, and with pomp:Such noise is like the roar of bleak-grown pines;Which, when it ceases in this mountain'd world,No other sound succeeds; but ceasing here,Among these fallen, Saturn's voice therefromGrew up like organ, that begins anewIts strain, when other harmonies, stopt short,Leave the dinn'd air vibrating silverly.Thus grew it up--"Not in my own sad breast,Which is its own great judge and searcher out,Can I find reason why ye should be thus:Not in the legends of the first of days,Studied from that old spirit-leaved bookWhich starry Uranus with finger brightSav'd from the shores of darkness, when the wavesLow-ebb'd still hid it up in shallow gloom;--And the which book ye know I ever keptFor my firm-based footstool:--Ah, infirm!Not there, nor in sign, symbol, or portentOf element, earth, water, air, and fire,--At war, at peace, or inter-quarrelingOne against one, or two, or three, or allEach several one against the other three,As fire with air loud warring when rain-floodsDrown both, and press them both against earth's face,Where, finding sulphur, a quadruple wrathUnhinges 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 scrollEven 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 earIs all a-hunger'd. Thou, Oceanus,Ponderest high and deep; and in thy faceI see, astonied, that severe contentWhich 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-endeavouring tongueCaught 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 proofHow 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 forceOf thunder, or of Jove. Great Saturn, thouHast sifted well the atom-universe;But for this reason, that thou art the King,And only blind from sheer supremacy,One avenue was shaded from thine eyes,Through which I wandered to eternal truth.And first, as thou wast not the first of powers,So art thou not the last; it cannot be:Thou art not the beginning nor the end.From chaos and parental darkness cameLight, the first fruits of that intestine broil,That sullen ferment, which for wondrous endsWas ripening in itself. The ripe hour came,And with it light, and light, engenderingUpon its own producer, forthwith touch'dThe whole enormous matter into life.Upon that very hour, our parentage,The Heavens and the Earth, were manifest:Then thou first-born, and we the giant-race,Found ourselves ruling new and beauteous realms.Now comes the pain of truth, to whom 'tis pain;O folly! for to bear all naked truths,And to envisage circumstance, all calm,That is the top of sovereignty. Mark well!As Heaven and Earth are fairer, fairer farThan Chaos and blank Darkness, though once chiefs;And as we show beyond that Heaven and EarthIn form and shape compact and beautiful,In will, in action free, companionship,And thousand other signs of purer life;So on our heels a fresh perfection treads,A power more strong in beauty, born of usAnd fated to excel us, as we passIn glory that old Darkness: nor are weThereby more conquer'd, than by us the ruleOf shapeless Chaos. Say, doth the dull soilQuarrel 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 doveBecause it cooeth, and hath snowy wingsTo wander wherewithal and find its joys?We are such forest-trees, and our fair boughsHave bred forth, not pale solitary doves,But eagles golden-feather'd, who do towerAbove us in their beauty, and must reignIn right thereof; for 'tis the eternal lawThat first in beauty should be first in might:Yea, by that law, another race may driveOur conquerors to mourn as we do now.Have ye beheld the young God of the Seas,My dispossessor? Have ye seen his face?Have ye beheld his chariot, foam'd alongBy noble winged creatures he hath made?I saw him on the calmed waters scud,With such a glow of beauty in his eyes,That it enforc'd me to bid sad farewellTo all my empire: farewell sad I took,And hither came, to see how dolorous fateHad wrought upon ye; and how I might bestGive consolation in this woe extreme.Receive the truth, and let it be your balm."

Whether through poz'd conviction, or disdain,They guarded silence, when OceanusLeft murmuring, what deepest thought can tell?But so it was, none answer'd for a space,Save one whom none regarded, Clymene;And yet she answer'd not, only complain'd,With hectic lips, and eyes up-looking mild,Thus wording timidly among the fierce:"O Father, I am here the simplest voice,And all my knowledge is that joy is gone,And this thing woe crept in among our hearts,There to remain for ever, as I fear:I would not bode of evil, if I thoughtSo weak a creature could turn off the helpWhich by just right should come of mighty Gods;Yet let me tell my sorrow, let me tellOf what I heard, and how it made me weep,And know that we had parted from all hope.I stood upon a shore, a pleasant shore,Where a sweet clime was breathed from a landOf fragrance, quietness, and trees, and flowers.Full of calm joy it was, as I of grief;Too full of joy and soft delicious warmth;So that I felt a movement in my heartTo chide, and to reproach that solitudeWith songs of misery, music of our woes;And sat me down, and took a mouthed shellAnd murmur'd into it, and made melody--O melody no more! for while I sang,And with poor skill let pass into the breezeThe dull shell's echo, from a bowery strandJust opposite, an island of the sea,There came enchantment with the shifting wind,That did both drown and keep alive my ears.I threw my shell away upon the sand,And a wave fill'd it, as my sense was fill'dWith that new blissful golden melody.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 sickOf 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 feltThose pains of mine; O Saturn, hadst thou felt,Ye would not call this too indulged tonguePresumptuous, in thus venturing to be heard."

So far her voice flow'd on, like timorous brookThat, lingering along a pebbled coast,Doth fear to meet the sea: but sea it met,And shudder'd; for the overwhelming voiceOf huge Enceladus swallow'd it in wrath:The ponderous syllables, like sullen wavesIn the half-glutted hollows of reef-rocks,Came booming thus, while still upon his armHe 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 allThat rebel Jove's whole armoury were spent,Not world on world upon these shoulders piled,Could agonize me more than baby-wordsIn 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 rous'dYour 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 eyesWide glaring for revenge!"--As this he said,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 heavenCame 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 nameFlew from his lips up to the vaulted rocks,A pallid gleam across his features stern:Not savage, for he saw full many a GodWroth 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 locksShone like the bubbling foam about a keelWhen the prow sweeps into a midnight cove.In pale and silver silence they remain'd,Till suddenly a splendour, like the morn,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 peakHis bright feet touch'd, and there he stay'd to viewThe misery his brilliance had betray'dTo the most hateful seeing of itself.Golden his hair of short Numidian curl,Regal his shape majestic, a vast shadeIn midst of his own brightness, like the bulkOf Memnon's image at the set of sunTo one who travels from the dusking East:Sighs, too, as mournful as that Memnon's harpHe utter'd, while his hands contemplativeHe press'd together, and in silence stood.Despondence seiz'd again the fallen GodsAt sight of the dejected King of Day,And many hid their faces from the light:But fierce Enceladus sent forth his eyesAmong the brotherhood; and, at their glare,Uprose Iäpetus, and Creüs too,And Phorcus, sea-born, and together strodeTo where he towered on his eminence.There those four shouted forth old Saturn's name;Hyperion from the peak loud answered, "Saturn!"Saturn sat near the Mother of the Gods,In whose face was no joy, though all the GodsGave from their hollow throats the name of "Saturn!"