HYPERION. BOOK I. DEEP in the shady sadness of a vale Like cloud on cloud. No stir of air was there, Spreading a shade: the Naiad 'mid her reeds Along the margin-sand large foot-marks went, No further than to where his feet had stray'd, And slept there since. Upon the sodden ground His old right hand lay nerveless, listless, dead, Unsceptred; and his realmless eyes were closed; ΙΘΙ 10 15 While his bow'd head seem'd list'ning to the Earth, 20 His ancient mother, for some comfort yet.* It seem'd no force could wake him from his place ;. But there came one, who with a kindred hand Touch'd his wide shoulders, after bending low With reverence, though to one who knew it not. She was a Goddess of the infant world; By her in stature the tall Amazon Had stood a pigmy's height: she would have ta'en Achilles by the hair and bent his neck; Or with a finger stay'd Ixion's wheel. Her face was large as that of Memphian sphinx, But oh! how unlike marble was that face : How beautiful, if sorrow had not made 25 30 35 40 * The following cancelled lines occur at this point in Woodhouse's transcript of the poem : Thus the old Eagle, drowsy with great grief, Though an immortal, she felt cruel pain: Leaning with parted lips, some words she spake Some mourning words, which in our feeble tongue 45 50 "Saturn, look up!-though wherefore, poor old King? "I have no comfort for thee, no not one: 66 66 'I cannot say, 'O wherefore sleepest thou?' "For heaven is parted from thee, and the earth 66 'Thy thunder, conscious of the new command, "Rumbles reluctant o'er our fallen house; "And thy sharp lightning in unpractised hands "Scorches and burns our once serene domain. "O aching time! O moments big as years ! "All as ye pass swell out the monstrous truth, "And press it so upon our weary griefs "That unbelief has not a space to breathe. "Saturn, sleep on :-O thoughtless, why did I "Thus violate thy slumbrous solitude? "Why should I ope thy melancholy eyes? 46 Saturn, sleep on! while at thy feet I weep." As when, upon a tranced summer-night, Those green-rob'd senators of mighty woods, 55 60 65 70 Tall oaks, branch-charmed by the earnest stars, Which comes upon the silence, and dies off, 75 So came these words and went; the while in tears She touch'd her fair large forehead to the ground, 80 Just where her falling hair might be outspread A soft and silken mat for Saturn's feet. One moon, with alteration slow, had shed As with a palsied tongue, and while his beard "Peers like the front of Saturn. Who had power 66 85 90 95 100 To make me desolate? whence came the strength? "How was it nurtur'd to such bursting forth, "While Fate seem'd strangled in my nervous grasp ? 105 "But it is so; and I am smother'd up, "And buried from all godlike exercise "Of influence benign on planets pale, "Of admonitions to the winds and seas, "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 66 "My strong identity, my real self, 110 "Somewhere between the throne, and where I sit 115 "Here on this spot of earth. Search, Thea, search! Open thine eyes eterne, and sphere them round "Upon all space: space starr'd, and lorn of light; "Space region'd with life-air; and barren void; "Spaces of fire, and all the yawn of hell.— 66 'Search, Thea, search! and tell me, if thou seest "With wings or chariot fierce to repossess "Be of ripe progress-Saturn must be King. 'Yes, there must be a golden victory; 120 125 "There must be Gods thrown down, and trumpets blown "Of triumph calm, and hymns of festival 66 Upon the gold clouds metropolitan, "Voices of soft proclaim, and silver stir "Of strings in hollow shells; and there shall be 130 |