That with all this I still can look 25 And hid their eyes and wept; and some around, 120 And worship Nature with a thought profound. the stars Did wander darkling in the eternal space, Rayless, and pathless, and the icy earth Swung blind and blackening in the moonless air; Morn came and went-and came, and brought no day, And men forgot their passions in the dread Of this their desolation; and all hearts Were chill'd into a selfish prayer for light: 10 And they did live by watchfires-and the thrones, The palaces of crowned kings-the huts, The habitations of all things which dwell, Were burnt for beacons; cities were consumed, did rest Their chins upon their clenched hands, and smiled; All earth was but one thought- and that was death Immediate and inglorious; and the pang Of famine fed upon all entrails-men 45 Died, and their bones were tombless as their flesh; The meagre by the meagre were devour'd, one, And he was faithful to a corse, and kept The birds and beasts and famish'd men at bay, 50 Till hunger clung them,1 or the dropping dead Lured their lank jaws; himself sought out no food, But with a piteous and perpetual moan, And a quick desolate cry, licking the hand Which answer'd not with a caress-he died. 55 The crowd was famish'd by degrees; but two Of an enormous city did survivė, things 60 For an unholy usage; they raked up, 1 dried them up (See Macbeth, V, 5, 40.) Titan! to whose immortal eyes The sufferings of mortality, Seen in their sad reality, Were not as things that gods despise; 5 What was thy pity's recompense? A silent suffering, and intense; The rock, the vulture, and the chain, All that the proud can feel of pain, The agony they do not show, 10 The suffocating sense of woe, Which speaks but in its loneliness, And then is jealous lest the sky Should have a listener, nor will sigh Until its voice is echoless. 15 Titan! to thee the strife was given Between the suffering and the will, Which torture where they cannot kill; And the inexorable Heaven, And the deaf tyranny of Fate, 20 The ruling principle of Hate, Which for its pleasure doth create |