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 book
"Which starry Uranus with finger bright

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"Sav'd from the shores of darkness, when the waves 135 "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-quarreling "One against one, or two, or three, or all "Each several one against the other three,

"As fire with air loud warring when rain-floods

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"Drown both, and press them both against earth's

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

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"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,

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"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!

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"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

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"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,

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In murmurs, which his first-endeavouring tongue
Caught infant-like from the far-foamed sands.

"O ye, whom wrath consumes! who, passion-stung, "Writhe at defeat, and nurse your agonies!

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"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 force
"Of thunder, or of Jove. Great Saturn, thou
"Hast 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 came
"Light, the first fruits of that intestine broil,
"That sullen ferment, which for wondrous ends
"Was ripening in itself. The ripe hour came,

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"And with it light, and light, engendering

Upon its own producer, forthwith touch'd "The 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,

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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 far "Than Chaos and blank Darkness, though once chiefs; "And as we show beyond that Heaven and Earth

"In 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 us
"And fated to excel us, as we pass
"In glory that old Darkness: nor are we
Thereby more conquer'd, than by us the rule
"Of shapeless Chaos. Say, doth the dull soil
Quarrel 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 dove
"Because it cooeth, and hath snowy wings
"To wander wherewithal and find its joys?

"We are such forest-trees, and our fair boughs
"Have bred forth, not pale solitary doves,
"But eagles golden-feather'd, who do tower
"Above us in their beauty, and must reign
"In right thereof; for 'tis the eternal law

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"That first in beauty should be first in might:

'Yea, by that law, another race may drive
"Our 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 along

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By 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 farewell

To all my empire: farewell sad I took,

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"And hither came, to see how dolorous fate
"Had wrought upon ye; and how I might best
"Give consolation in this woe extreme.
"Receive the truth, and let it be your balm."

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Whether through poz'd conviction, or disdain,

They guarded silence, when Oceanus

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Left 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 :

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"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 :

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"I would not bode of evil, if I thought

"So weak a creature could turn off the help

"Which by just right should come of mighty Gods;

"Yet let me tell my sorrow, let me tell

"Of what I heard, and how it made me weep, "And know that we had parted from all hope.

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“I stood upon a shore, a pleasant shore,
"Where a sweet clime was breathed from a land
"Of 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 heart
"To chide, and to reproach that solitude
"With songs of misery, music of our woes;
“And sat me down, and took a mouthed shell
“And murmur'd into it, and made melody—
"O melody no more! for while I sang,
"And with poor skill let pass into the breeze
"The dull shell's echo, from a bowery strand
"Just 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'd

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“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 sick

"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 cry'd, 'Apollo! young Apollo !
"The morning-bright Apollo! young Apollo!'
"I fled, it follow'd me, and cry'd'Apollo!'

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