mi versión del POEMA DEL ANILLO

 

mi versión del 

POEMA DEL ANILLO

 

 Tres Anillos para los Reyes de los Elfos, 

bajo la bóveda de los cielos. 

Siete, para los nobles de los Enanos, 

en sus mansiones de piedra. 

Nueve para los mortales Hombres, 

que a morir están destinados. 

 

Uno para el Señor Oscuro, 

en su Trono Oscuro, 

en la Tierra de Mordor, 

donde murmuran las sombras.

 

Un Anillo para hallarlos. 

Uno para a todos gobernarlos.

Uno para a todos conducirlos 

y en las sombras atarlos,

en la Tierra de Mordor, 

donde murmuran las sombras

Ozymandias (User-maat-ra Setep-en-ra)

 OZYMANDIAS

de Percy Bysshe Shelley

(traducción personal)

(Original)

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said:—Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shatter'd visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamp'd on these lifeless things,
The hand that mock'd them and the heart that fed.

And on the pedestal these words appear:

"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!"

Nothing beside remains: round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

 ---

Mi traducción

Me encontré a un viajero de una antigua tierra
quien me dijo: -Dos enormes y amputadas piernas de piedra
se yerguen en el desierto. Junto a ellas en al arena,
semi-enterrado, un rostro roto yace, cuyos ceño
y labios fruncidos y una mueca fría de mando

dice que su escultor leyó bien esas pasiones

que aun sobreviven, plasmadas en esas cosas sin vida,

por la mano que las talló y el corazón que las alimentó

Y en el pedestal aparecen estas palabras:

"Mi nombre es Ozymandias, rey de reyes:

¡Mirad mis obras, vosotros, poderosos, y desesperad!"

Nada más queda: alrededor de la decadencia
de esas ruinas colosales, eternas y desnudas,
las arenas solitarias y vacías se extienden hasta el horizonte.

Poema de Calderón de la Barca

 

El soldado español de los Tercios

Este ejército que ves
vago al yelo y al calor,
la república mejor
y más política es
del mundo, en que nadie espere
que ser preferido pueda
por la nobleza que hereda,
sino por la que el adquiere;
porque aquí a la sangre excede
el lugar que uno se hace
y sin mirar cómo nace
se mira como procede.

Aquí la necesidad
no es infamia; y si es honrado,
pobre y desnudo un soldado
tiene mejor cualidad
que el más galán y lucido;
porque aquí a lo que sospecho
no adorna el vestido el pecho
que el pecho adorna al vestido.

Y así, de modestia llenos,
a los más viejos verás
tratando de ser lo más
y de aparentar lo menos.

Aquí la más principal
hazaña es obedecer,
y el modo cómo ha de ser
es ni pedir ni rehusar.

Aquí, en fin, la cortesía,
el buen trato, la verdad,
la firmeza, la lealtad,
el honor, la bizarría,
el crédito, la opinión,
la constancia, la paciencia,
la humildad y la obediencia,
fama, honor y vida son
caudal de pobres soldados;
que en buena o mala fortuna
la milicia no es más que una
religión de hombres honrados.

Hyperion, Book III

By J. Keats

Thus in alternate uproar and sad peace,
Amazed were those Titans utterly.
O leave them, Muse! O leave them to their woes;
For thou art weak to sing such tumults dire:
A solitary sorrow best befits                                                   5
Thy lips, and antheming a lonely grief.
Leave them, O Muse! for thou anon wilt find
Many a fallen old Divinity
Wandering in vain about bewildered shores.
Meantime touch piously the Delphic harp,                          10
And not a wind of heaven but will breathe
In aid soft warble from the Dorian flute;
For lo! ’tis for the Father of all verse.
Flush every thing that hath a vermeil hue,
Let the rose glow intense and warm the air,                        15
And let the clouds of even and of morn
Float in voluptuous fleeces o’er the hills;
Let the red wine within the goblet boil,
Cold as a bubbling well; let faint-lipp’d shells,
On sands, or in great deeps, vermilion turn                         20
Through all their labyrinths; and let the maid
Blush keenly, as with some warm kiss surpris’d.
Chief isle of the embowered Cyclades,
Rejoice, O Delos, with thine olives green,
And poplars, and lawn-shading palms, and beech,             25
In which the Zephyr breathes the loudest song,
And hazels thick, dark-stemm’d beneath the shade:
Apollo is once more the golden theme!
Where was he, when the Giant of the Sun
Stood bright, amid the sorrow of his peers?                         30
Together had he left his mother fair
And his twin-sister sleeping in their bower,
And in the morning twilight wandered forth
Beside the osiers of a rivulet,
Full ankle-deep in lilies of the vale.                                       35
The nightingale had ceas’d, and a few stars
Were lingering in the heavens, while the thrush
Began calm-throated. Throughout all the isle
There was no covert, no retired cave
Unhaunted by the murmurous noise of waves,                   40
Though scarcely heard in many a green recess.
He listen’d, and he wept, and his bright tears
Went trickling down the golden bow he held.
Thus with half-shut suffused eyes he stood,
While from beneath some cumbrous boughs hard by        45
With solemn step an awful Goddess came,
And there was purport in her looks for him,
Which he with eager guess began to read
Perplex’d, the while melodiously he said:
“How cam’st thou over the unfooted sea?                           50
“Or hath that antique mien and robed form
“Mov’d in these vales invisible till now?
“Sure I have heard those vestments sweeping o’er
“The fallen leaves, when I have sat alone
“In cool mid-forest. Surely I have traced                               55
“The rustle of those ample skirts about
“These grassy solitudes, and seen the flowers
“Lift up their heads, as still the whisper pass’d.
“Goddess! I have beheld those eyes before,
“And their eternal calm, and all that face,                              60
“Or I have dream’d.”—“Yes,” said the supreme shape,
“Thou hast dream’d of me; and awaking up
“Didst find a lyre all golden by thy side,
“Whose strings touch’d by thy fingers, all the vast
“Unwearied ear of the whole universe                                   65
“Listen’d in pain and pleasure at the birth
“Of such new tuneful wonder. Is’t not strange
“That thou shouldst weep, so gifted? Tell me, youth,
“What sorrow thou canst feel; for I am sad
“When thou dost shed a tear: explain thy griefs                    70
“To one who in this lonely isle hath been
“The watcher of thy sleep and hours of life,
“From the young day when first thy infant hand
“Pluck’d witless the weak flowers, till thine arm
“Could bend that bow heroic to all times.                              75
“Show thy heart’s secret to an ancient Power
“Who hath forsaken old and sacred thrones
“For prophecies of thee, and for the sake
“Of loveliness new born.”—Apollo then,
With sudden scrutiny and gloomless eyes,                           80
Thus answer’d, while his white melodious throat
Throbb’d with the syllables.—“Mnemosyne!
“Thy name is on my tongue, I know not how;
“Why should I tell thee what thou so well seest?
“Why should I strive to show what from thy lips                   85
“Would come no mystery? For me, dark, dark,
“And painful vile oblivion seals my eyes:
“I strive to search wherefore I am so sad,
“Until a melancholy numbs my limbs;
“And then upon the grass I sit, and moan,                            90
“Like one who once had wings.—O why should I
“Feel curs’d and thwarted, when the liegeless air
“Yields to my step aspirant? why should I
“Spurn the green turf as hateful to my feet?
“Goddess benign, point forth some unknown thing:            95
“Are there not other regions than this isle?
“What are the stars? There is the sun, the sun!
“And the most patient brilliance of the moon!
“And stars by thousands! Point me out the way
“To any one particular beauteous star,                                100
“And I will flit into it with my lyre,
“And make its silvery splendour pant with bliss.
“I have heard the cloudy thunder: Where is power?
“Whose hand, whose essence, what divinity
“Makes this alarum in the elements,                                   105
“While I here idle listen on the shores
“In fearless yet in aching ignorance?
“O tell me, lonely Goddess, by thy harp,
“That waileth every morn and eventide,
“Tell me why thus I rave, about these groves!                     110
“Mute thou remainest—Mute! yet I can read
“A wondrous lesson in thy silent face:
“Knowledge enormous makes a God of me.
“Names, deeds, gray legends, dire events, rebellions,
“Majesties, sovran voices, agonies,                                     115
“Creations and destroyings, all at once
“Pour into the wide hollows of my brain,
“And deify me, as if some blithe wine
“Or bright elixir peerless I had drunk,
“And so become immortal.”—Thus the God,                      120
While his enkindled eyes, with level glance
Beneath his white soft temples, stedfast kept
Trembling with light upon Mnemosyne.
Soon wild commotions shook him, and made flush
All the immortal fairness of his limbs;                                 125
Most like the struggle at the gate of death;
Or liker still to one who should take leave
Of pale immortal death, and with a pang
As hot as death’s is chill, with fierce convulse
Die into life: so young Apollo anguish’d;                             130
His very hair, his golden tresses famed
Kept undulation round his eager neck.
During the pain Mnemosyne upheld
Her arms as one who prophesied.—At length
Apollo shriek’d;—and lo! from all his limbs                         135
Celestial

THE END.

Hyperion, Book II

By J. Keats

Just at the self-same beat of Time’s wide wings
Hyperion slid into the rustled air,
And Saturn gain’d with Thea that sad place
Where Cybele and the bruised Titans mourn’d.
It was a den where no insulting light                                                5
Could glimmer on their tears; where their own groans
They felt, but heard not, for the solid roar
Of thunderous waterfalls and torrents hoarse,
Pouring a constant bulk, uncertain where.
Crag jutting forth to crag, and rocks that seem’d                           10
Ever as if just rising from a sleep,
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,                                   15
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,                                              20
With many more, the brawniest in assault,
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;                      25
Without a motion, save of their big hearts
Heaving in pain, and horribly convuls’d
With sanguine feverous boiling gurge of pulse.
Mnemosyne was straying in the world;
Far from her moon had Phoebe wandered;                                 30
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 cirque
Of Druid stones, upon a forlorn moor,                                          35
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 gave
Or word, or look, or action of despair.                                           40
Creus was one; his ponderous iron mace
Lay by him, and a shatter’d rib of rock
Told of his rage, ere he thus sank and pined.
Iapetus another; in his grasp,
A serpent’s plashy neck; its barbed tongue                                 45
Squeez’d from the gorge, and all its uncurl’d length
Dead; and because the creature could not spit
Its poison in the eyes of conquering Jove.
Next Cottus: prone he lay, chin uppermost,
As though in pain; for still upon the flint                                      50
He ground severe his skull, with open mouth
And eyes at horrid working. Nearest him
Asia, born of most enormous Caf,
Who cost her mother Tellus keener pangs,
Though feminine, than any of her sons:                                      55
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.                                             60
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,                                      65
Shadow’d Enceladus; once tame and mild
As grazing ox unworried in the meads;
Now tiger-passion’d, lion-thoughted, wroth,
He meditated, plotted, and even now
Was hurling mountains in that second war,                                70
Not long delay’d, that scar’d the younger Gods
To hide themselves in forms of beast and bird.
Nor far hence Atlas; and beside him prone
Phorcus, the sire of Gorgons. Neighbour’d close
Oceanus, and Tethys, in whose lap                                             75
Sobb’d Clymene among her tangled hair.
In midst of all lay Themis, at the feet
Of Ops the queen all clouded round from sight;
No shape distinguishable, more than when
Thick night confounds the pine-tops with the clouds:               80
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 chaunt
Of Saturn, and his guide, who now had climb’d
With damp and slippery footing from a depth                            85
More horrid still. Above a sombre cliff
Their heads appear’d, and up their stature grew
Till on the level height their steps found ease:
Then Thea spread abroad her trembling arms
Upon the precincts of this nest of pain,                                      90
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.                        95
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.                                    100

As with us mortal men, the laden heart
Is persecuted more, and fever’d more,
When it is nighing to the mournful house
Where other hearts are sick of the same bruise;
So Saturn, as he walk’d into the midst,                                     105
Felt faint, and would have sunk among the rest,
But that he met Enceladus’s eye,
Whose mightiness, and awe of him, at once
Came like an inspiration; and he shouted,
“Titans, behold your God!” at which some groan’d;                  110
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.                           115
There is a roaring in the bleak-grown pines
When Winter lifts his voice; there is a noise
Among immortals when a God gives sign,
With hushing finger, how he means to load
His tongue with the full weight of utterless thought,              120
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 therefrom                         125
Grew up like organ, that begins anew
Its 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,                      130
“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             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,—                                 140
“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
“Drown both, and press them both against earth’s face,         145
“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,                         150
“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,                                155
“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,                              160
“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                                        165
“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,                                    170
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!
“Shut up your senses, stifle up your ears,                                175
“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.                                     180
“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,                                    185
“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.                                 190
“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,
“And with it light, and light, engendering                                 195
“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,                         200
“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!                                205
“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,                                      210
“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                                      215
“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?                            220
“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,                                 225
“But eagles golden-feather’d, who do tower
“Above us in their beauty, and must reign
“In right thereof; for ’tis the eternal law
“That first in beauty should be first in might:
“Yea, by that law, another race may drive                                230
“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
“By noble winged creatures he hath made?                             235
“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,
“And hither came, to see how dolorous fate                              240
“Had wrought upon ye; and how I might best
“Give 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 Oceanus                                       245
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,                                250
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:                                              255
“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,                             260
“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 land
“Of fragrance, quietness, and trees, and flowers.
“Full of calm joy it was, as I of grief;                                             265
“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                             270
“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,                                            275
“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
“With that new blissful golden melody.                                       280
“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,                                     285
“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
“Of joy and grief at once. Grief overcame,
“And I was stopping up my frantic ears,                                     290
“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!’                                       295
“O Father, and O Brethren, had ye felt
“Those pains of mine; O Saturn, hadst thou felt,
“Ye would not call this too indulged tongue
“Presumptuous, in thus venturing to be heard.”

So far her voice flow’d on, like timorous brook                            300
That, lingering along a pebbled coast,
Doth fear to meet the sea: but sea it met,
And shudder’d; for the overwhelming voice
Of huge Enceladus swallow’d it in wrath:
The ponderous syllables, like sullen waves                                  305
In the half-glutted hollows of reef-rocks,
Came booming thus, while still upon his arm
He lean’d; not rising, from supreme contempt.
“Or shall we listen to the over-wise,
“Or to the over-foolish giant, Gods?                                              310
“Not thunderbolt on thunderbolt, till all
“That rebel Jove’s whole armoury were spent,
“Not world on world upon these shoulders piled,
“Could agonize me more than baby-words
“In midst of this dethronement horrible.                                        315
“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’d                             320
“Your 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 eyes
“Wide glaring for revenge!”—As this he said,
He lifted up his stature vast, and stood,                                       325
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,                                330
“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;                       335
“Those days, all innocent of scathing war,
“When all the fair Existences of heaven
“Came 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;                            340
“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!”                                                345

All eyes were on Enceladus’s face,
And they beheld, while still Hyperion’s name
Flew from his lips up to the vaulted rocks,
A pallid gleam across his features stern:
Not savage, for he saw full many a God                                        350
Wroth 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 locks
Shone like the bubbling foam about a keel
When the prow sweeps into a midnight cove.                               355
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,                                             360
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,                                365
Now saw the light and made it terrible.
It was Hyperion:—a granite peak
His bright feet touch’d, and there he stay’d to view
The misery his brilliance had betray’d
To the most hateful seeing of itself.                                                370
Golden his hair of short Numidian curl,
Regal his shape majestic, a vast shade
In midst of his own brightness, like the bulk
Of Memnon’s image at the set of sun
To one who travels from the dusking East:                                     375
Sighs, too, as mournful as that Memnon’s harp
He utter’d, while his hands contemplative
He press’d together, and in silence stood.
Despondence seiz’d again the fallen Gods
At sight of the dejected King of Day,                                               380
And many hid their faces from the light:
But fierce Enceladus sent forth his eyes
Among the brotherhood; and, at their glare,
Uprose Iapetus, and Creus too,
And Phorcus, sea-born, and together strode                                   385
To 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 Gods                               390
Gave from their hollow throats the name of “Saturn!”

Hyperion, Book I

By J. Keats

Deep in the shady sadness of a vale
Far sunken from the healthy breath of morn,
Far from the fiery noon, and eve’s one star,
Sat gray-hair’d Saturn, quiet as a stone,
Still as the silence round about his lair;                                   5
Forest on forest hung about his head
Like cloud on cloud. No stir of air was there,
Not so much life as on a summer’s day
Robs not one light seed from the feather’d grass,
But where the dead leaf fell, there did it rest.                         10
A stream went voiceless by, still deadened more
By reason of his fallen divinity
Spreading a shade: the Naiad ’mid her reeds
Press’d her cold finger closer to her lips.

Along the margin-sand large foot-marks went,                       15
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;
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.                      25
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.                                         30
Her face was large as that of Memphian sphinx,
Pedestal’d haply in a palace court,
When sages look’d to Egypt for their lore.
But oh! how unlike marble was that face:
How beautiful, if sorrow had not made                                     35
Sorrow more beautiful than Beauty’s self.
There was a listening fear in her regard,
As if calamity had but begun;
As if the vanward clouds of evil days
Had spent their malice, and the sullen rear                               40
Was with its stored thunder labouring up.
One hand she press’d upon that aching spot
Where beats the human heart, as if just there,
Though an immortal, she felt cruel pain:
The other upon Saturn’s bended neck                                      45
She laid, and to the level of his ear
Leaning with parted lips, some words she spake
In solemn tenour and deep organ tone:
Some mourning words, which in our feeble tongue
Would come in these like accents; O how frail                          50
To that large utterance of the early Gods!
“Saturn, look up!—though wherefore, poor old King?
“I have no comfort for thee, no not one:
“I cannot say, “O wherefore sleepest thou?’
“For heaven is parted from thee, and the earth                          55
“Knows thee not, thus afflicted, for a God;
“And ocean too, with all its solemn noise,
“Has from thy sceptre pass’d; and all the air
“Is emptied of thine hoary majesty.
“Thy thunder, conscious of the new command,                        60
“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,                           65
“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?                                  70
“Saturn, sleep on! while at thy feet I weep.”

As when, upon a tranced summer-night,
Those green-robed senators of mighty woods,
Tall oaks, branch-charmed by the earnest stars,
Dream, and so dream all night without a stir,                            75
Save from one gradual solitary gust
Which comes upon the silence, and dies off,
As if the ebbing air had but one wave;
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
Her silver seasons four upon the night,
And still these two were postured motionless,                         85
Like natural sculpture in cathedral cavern;
The frozen God still couchant on the earth,
And the sad Goddess weeping at his feet:
Until at length old Saturn lifted up
His faded eyes, and saw his kingdom gone,                            90
And all the gloom and sorrow of the place,
And that fair kneeling Goddess; and then spake,
As with a palsied tongue, and while his beard
Shook horrid with such aspen-malady:
“O tender spouse of gold Hyperion,                                         95
“Thea, I feel thee ere I see thy face;
“Look up, and let me see our doom in it;
“Look up, and tell me if this feeble shape
“Is Saturn’s; tell me, if thou hear’st the voice
“Of Saturn; tell me, if this wrinkling brow,                               100
“Naked and bare of its great diadem,
“Peers like the front of Saturn. Who had power
“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,                            110
“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
“My strong identity, my real self,
“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.—                              120
“Search, Thea, search! and tell me, if thou seest
“A certain shape or shadow, making way
“With wings or chariot fierce to repossess
“A heaven he lost erewhile: it must—it must
“Be of ripe progress—Saturn must be King.                           125
“Yes, there must be a golden victory;
“There must be Gods thrown down, and trumpets blown
“Of triumph calm, and hymns of festival
“Upon the gold clouds metropolitan,
“Voices of soft proclaim, and silver stir                                    130
“Of strings in hollow shells; and there shall be
“Beautiful things made new, for the surprise
“Of the sky-children; I will give command:
“Thea! Thea! Thea! where is Saturn?”

This passion lifted him upon his feet,                                      135
And made his hands to struggle in the air,
His Druid locks to shake and ooze with sweat,
His eyes to fever out, his voice to cease.
He stood, and heard not Thea’s sobbing deep;
A little time, and then again he snatch’d                                 140
Utterance thus.—“But cannot I create?
“Cannot I form? Cannot I fashion forth
“Another world, another universe,
“To overbear and crumble this to nought?
“Where is another chaos? Where?”—That word                    145
Found way unto Olympus, and made quake
The rebel three.—Thea was startled up,
And in her bearing was a sort of hope,
As thus she quick-voic’d spake, yet full of awe.

“This cheers our fallen house: come to our friends,               150
“O Saturn! come away, and give them heart;
“I know the covert, for thence came I hither.”
Thus brief; then with beseeching eyes she went
With backward footing through the shade a space:
He follow’d, and she turn’d to lead the way                           155
Through aged boughs, that yielded like the mist
Which eagles cleave upmounting from their nest.

Meanwhile in other realms big tears were shed,
More sorrow like to this, and such like woe,
Too huge for mortal tongue or pen of scribe:                        160
The Titans fierce, self hid, or prison-bound,
Groan’d for the old allegiance once more,
And listen’d in sharp pain for Saturn’s voice.
But one of the whole mammoth-brood still kept
His sov’reignty, and rule, and majesty;—                              165
Blazing Hyperion on his orbed fire
Still sat, still snuff’d the incense, teeming up
From man to the sun’s God; yet unsecure:
For as among us mortals omens drear
Fright and perplex, so also shuddered he—                          170
Not at dog’s howl, or gloom-bird’s hated screech,
Or the familiar visiting of one
Upon the first toll of his passing-bell,
Or prophesyings of the midnight lamp;
But horrors, portion’d to a giant nerve,                                   175
Oft made Hyperion ache. His palace bright
Bastion’d with pyramids of glowing gold,
And touch’d with shade of bronzed obelisks,
Glar’d a blood-red through all its thousand courts,
Arches, and domes, and fiery galleries;                                  180
And all its curtains of Aurorian clouds
Flush’d angerly: while sometimes eagle’s wings,
Unseen before by Gods or wondering men,
Darken’d the place; and neighing steeds were heard,
Not heard before by Gods or wondering men.                       185
Also, when he would taste the spicy wreaths
Of incense, breath’d aloft from sacred hills,
Instead of sweets, his ample palate took
Savour of poisonous brass and metal sick:
And so, when harbour’d in the sleepy west,                           190
After the full completion of fair day,—
For rest divine upon exalted couch
And slumber in the arms of melody,
He pac’d away the pleasant hours of ease
With stride colossal, on from hall to hall;                                195
While far within each aisle and deep recess,
His winged minions in close clusters stood,
Amaz’d and full of fear; like anxious men
Who on wide plains gather in panting troops,
When earthquakes jar their battlements and towers.            200
Even now, while Saturn, rous’d from icy trance,
Went step for step with Thea through the woods,
Hyperion, leaving twilight in the rear,
Came slope upon the threshold of the west;
Then, as was wont, his palace-door flew ope                          205
In smoothest silence, save what solemn tubes,
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,                              210
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,                                         215
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 arcades,                            220
Until he reach’d the great main cupola;
There standing fierce beneath, he stampt his foot,
And from the basements deep to the high towers
Jarr’d his own golden region; and before
The quavering thunder thereupon had ceas’d,                       225
His voice leapt out, despite of godlike 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!                    230
“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,                                       235
“This cradle of my glory, this soft clime,
“This calm luxuriance of blissful light,
“These crystalline pavilions, aud pure fanes,
“Of all my lucent empire? It is left
“Deserted, void, nor any haunt of mine.                                  240
“The blaze, the splendor, and the symmetry,
“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 pomp.—                           245
“Fall!—No, by Tellus and her briny robes!
“Over the fiery frontier of my realms
“I will advance a terrible right arm
“Shall scare that infant thunderer, rebel Jove,
“And bid old Saturn take his throne again.”—                        250
He spake, and ceas’d, the while a heavier threat
Held struggle with his throat but came not forth;
For as in theatres of crowded men
Hubbub increases more they call out “Hush!”
So at Hyperion’s words the Phantoms pale                           255
Bestirr’d themselves, thrice horrible and cold;
And from the mirror’d level where he stood
A mist arose, as from a scummy marsh.
At this, through all his bulk an agony
Crept gradual, from the feet unto the crown,                         260
Like a lithe serpent vast and muscular
Making slow way, with head and neck convuls’d
From over-strained might. Releas’d, he fled
To the eastern gates, and full six dewy hours
Before the dawn in season due should blush,                       265
He breath’d fierce breath against the sleepy portals,
Clear’d them of heavy vapours, 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,                270
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          275
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 labouring thought
Won from the gaze of many centuries:                                 280
Now lost, save what we find on remnants huge
Of stone, or marble swart; their import gone,
Their wisdom long since fled.—Two wings this orb
Possess’d for glory, two fair argent wings,
Ever exalted at the God’s approach:                                     285
And now, from forth the gloom their plumes immense
Rose, one by one, till all outspreaded were;
While still the dazzling globe maintain’d eclipse,
Awaiting for Hyperion’s command.
Fain would he have commanded, fain took throne             290
And bid the day begin, if but for change.
He might not:—No, though a primeval God:
The sacred seasons might not be disturb’d.
Therefore the operations of the dawn
Stay’d in their birth, even as here ’tis told.                           295
Those silver wings expanded sisterly,
Eager to sail their orb; the porches wide
Open’d upon the dusk demesnes of night;
And the bright Titan, phrenzied with new woes,
Unus’d to bend, by hard compulsion bent                          300
His spirit to the sorrow of the time;
And all along a dismal rack of clouds,
Upon the boundaries of day and night,
He stretch’d himself in grief and radiance faint.
There as he lay, the Heaven with its stars                          305
Look’d down on him with pity, and the voice
Of Coelus, from the universal space,
Thus whisper’d low and solemn in his ear.
“O brightest of my children dear, earth-born
“And sky-engendered, Son of Mysteries                             310
“All unrevealed even to the powers
“Which met at thy creating; at whose joys
“And palpitations sweet, and pleasures soft,
“I, Coelus, wonder, how they came and whence;
“And at the fruits thereof what shapes they be,                 315
“Distinct, and visible; symbols divine,
“Manifestations of that beauteous life
“Diffus’d unseen throughout eternal space:
“Of these new-form’d art thou, oh brightest child!
“Of these, thy brethren and the Goddesses!                      320
“There is sad feud among ye, and rebellion
“Of son against his sire. I saw him fall,
“I saw my first-born tumbled from his throne!
“To me his arms were spread, to me his voice
“Found way from forth the thunders round his head!        325
“Pale wox I, and in vapours hid my face.
“Art thou, too, near such doom? vague fear there is:
“For I have seen my sons most unlike Gods.
“Divine ye were created, and divine
“In sad demeanour, solemn, undisturb’d,                            330
“Unruffled, like high Gods, ye liv’d and ruled:
“Now I behold in you fear, hope, and wrath;
“Actions of rage and passion; even as
“I see them, on the mortal world beneath,
“In men who die.—This is the grief, O Son!                         335
“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;                               340
“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!               345
“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 nurse.”—
Ere half this region-whisper had come down,
Hyperion arose, and on the stars                                        350
Lifted his curved lids, and kept them wide
Until it ceas’d; and still he kept them wide:
And still they were the same bright, patient stars.
Then with a slow incline of his broad breast,
Like to a diver in the pearly seas,                                         355
Forward he stoop’d over the airy shore,
And plung’d all noiseless into the deep night.

The Fall of Hyperion - A Dream

 
The Fall of Hyperion - A Dream

CANTO I

Fanatics have their dreams, wherewith they weave

A paradise for a sect; the savage too

From forth the loftiest fashion of his sleep

Guesses at Heaven; pity these have not

Trac'd upon vellum or wild Indian leaf

The shadows of melodious utterance.

But bare of laurel they live, dream, and die;

For Poesy alone can tell her dreams,

With the fine spell of words alone can save

Imagination from the sable charm

And dumb enchantment. Who alive can say,

'Thou art no Poet may'st not tell thy dreams?'

Since every man whose soul is not a clod

Hath visions, and would speak, if he had loved

And been well nurtured in his mother tongue.

Whether the dream now purpos'd to rehearse

Be poet's or fanatic's will be known

When this warm scribe my hand is in the grave.

Methought I stood where trees of every clime,

Palm, myrtle, oak, and sycamore, and beech,

With plantain, and spice blossoms, made a screen;

In neighbourhood of fountains, by the noise

Soft showering in my ears, and, by the touch

Of scent, not far from roses. Turning round

I saw an arbour with a drooping roof

Of trellis vines, and bells, and larger blooms,

Like floral censers swinging light in air;

Before its wreathed doorway, on a mound

Of moss, was spread a feast of summer fruits,

Which, nearer seen, seem'd refuse of a meal

By angel tasted or our Mother Eve;

For empty shells were scattered on the grass,

And grape stalks but half bare, and remnants more,

Sweet smelling, whose pure kinds I could not know.

Still was more plenty than the fabled horn

Thrice emptied could pour forth, at banqueting

For Proserpine return'd to her own fields,

Where the white heifers low. And appetite

More yearning than on earth I ever felt

Growing within, I ate deliciously;

And, after not long, thirsted, for thereby

Stood a cool vessel of transparent juice

Sipp'd by the wander'd bee, the which I took,

And, pledging all the mortals of the world,

And all the dead whose names are in our lips,

Drank. That full draught is parent of my theme.

No Asian poppy nor elixir fine

Of the soon fading jealous Caliphat,

No poison gender'd in close monkish cell

To thin the scarlet conclave of old men,

Could so have rapt unwilling life away.

Among the fragrant husks and berries crush'd,

Upon the grass I struggled hard against

The domineering potion; but in vain:

The cloudy swoon came on, and down I sunk

Like a Silenus on an antique vase.

How long I slumber'd 'tis a chance to guess.

When sense of life return'd, I started up

As if with wings; but the fair trees were gone,

The mossy mound and arbour were no more:

I look'd around upon the carved sides

Of an old sanctuary with roof august,

Builded so high, it seem'd that filmed clouds

Might spread beneath, as o'er the stars of heaven;

So old the place was, I remember'd none

The like upon the earth: what I had seen

Of grey cathedrals, buttress'd walls, rent towers,

The superannuations of sunk realms,

Or Nature's rocks toil'd hard in waves and winds,

Seem'd but the faulture of decrepit things

To that eternal domed monument.

Upon the marble at my feet there lay

Store of strange vessels and large draperies,

Which needs had been of dyed asbestos wove,

Or in that place the moth could not corrupt,

So white the linen, so, in some, distinct

Ran imageries from a sombre loom.

All in a mingled heap confus'd there lay

Robes, golden tongs, censer and chafing dish,

Girdles, and chains, and holy jewelries.

Turning from these with awe, once more I rais'd

My eyes to fathom the space every way;

The embossed roof, the silent massy range

Of columns north and south, ending in mist

Of nothing, then to eastward, where black gates

Were shut against the sunrise evermore.

Then to the west I look'd, and saw far off

An image, huge of feature as a cloud,

At level of whose feet an altar slept,

To be approach'd on either side by steps,

And marble balustrade, and patient travail

To count with toil the innumerable degrees.

Towards the altar sober paced I went,

Repressing haste, as too unholy there;

And, coming nearer, saw beside the shrine

One minist'ring; and there arose a flame.

When in mid May the sickening East wind

Shifts sudden to the south, the small warm rain

Melts out the frozen incense from all flowers,

And fills the air with so much pleasant health

That even the dying man forgets his shroud;

Even so that lofty sacrificial fire,

Sending forth Maian incense, spread around

Forgetfulness of everything but bliss,

And clouded all the altar with soft smoke,

From whose white fragrant curtains thus I heard

Language pronounc'd: 'If thou canst not ascend

'These steps, die on that marble where thou art.

'Thy flesh, near cousin to the common dust,

'Will parch for lack of nutriment thy bones

'Will wither in few years, and vanish so

'That not the quickest eye could find a grain

'Of what thou now art on that pavement cold.

'The sands of thy short life are spent this hour,

'And no hand in the universe can turn

'Thy hourglass, if these gummed leaves be burnt

'Ere thou canst mount up these immortal steps.'

I heard, I look'd: two senses both at once,

So fine, so subtle, felt the tyranny

Of that fierce threat and the hard task proposed.

Prodigious seem'd the toil, the leaves were yet

Burning when suddenly a palsied chill

Struck from the paved level up my limbs,

And was ascending quick to put cold grasp

Upon those streams that pulse beside the throat:

I shriek'd; and the sharp anguish of my shriek

Stung my own ears I strove hard to escape

The numbness; strove to gain the lowest step.

Slow, heavy, deadly was my pace: the cold

Grew stifling, suffocating, at the heart;

And when I clasp'd my hands I felt them not.

One minute before death, my iced foot touch'd

The lowest stair; and as it touch'd, life seem'd

To pour in at the toes: I mounted up,

As once fair angels on a ladder flew

From the green turf to Heaven. 'Holy Power,'

Cried I, approaching near the horned shrine,

'What am I that should so be saved from death?

'What am I that another death come not

'To choke my utterance sacrilegious here?'

Then said the veiled shadow 'Thou hast felt

'What 'tis to die and live again before

'Thy fated hour. That thou hadst power to do so

'Is thy own safety; thou hast dated on

'Thy doom.' 'High Prophetess,' said I, 'purge off,

'Benign, if so it please thee, my mind's film.'

'None can usurp this height,' return'd that shade,

'But those to whom the miseries of the world

'Are misery, and will not let them rest.

'All else who find a haven in the world,

'Where they may thoughtless sleep away their days,

'If by a chance into this fane they come,

'Rot on the pavement where thou rottedst half.'

'Are there not thousands in the world,' said I,

Encourag'd by the sooth voice of the shade,

'Who love their fellows even to the death;

'Who feel the giant agony of the world;

'And more, like slaves to poor humanity,

'Labour for mortal good? I sure should see

'Other men here; but I am here alone.'

'Those whom thou spak'st of are no vision'ries,'

Rejoin'd that voice; 'they are no dreamers weak;

'They seek no wonder but the human face,

'No music but a happy noted voice;

'They come not here, they have no thought to come;

'And thou art here, for thou art less than they:

'What benefit canst thou do, or all thy tribe,

'To the great world? Thou art a dreaming thing,

'A fever of thyself think of the Earth;

'What bliss even in hope is there for thee?

'What haven? every creature hath its home;

'Every sole man hath days of joy and pain,

'Whether his labours be sublime or low

'The pain alone; the joy alone; distinct:

'Only the dreamer venoms all his days,

'Bearing more woe than all his sins deserve.

'Therefore, that happiness be somewhat shar'd,

'Such things as thou art are admitted oft

'Into like gardens thou didst pass erewhile,

'And suffer'd in these temples: for that cause

'Thou standest safe beneath this statue's knees.'

'That I am favour'd for unworthiness,

'By such propitious parley medicin'd

'In sickness not ignoble, I rejoice,

'Aye, and could weep for love of such award.'

So answer'd I, continuing, 'If it please,

'Majestic shadow, tell me: sure not all

'Those melodies sung into the world's ear

'Are useless: sure a poet is a sage;

'A humanist, physician to all men.

'That I am none I feel, as vultures feel

'They are no birds when eagles are abroad.

'What am I then? Thou spakest of my tribe:

'What tribe?' The tall shade veil'd in drooping white

Then spake, so much more earnest, that the breath

Moved the thin linen folds that drooping hung

About a golden censer from the hand

Pendent. 'Art thou not of the dreamer tribe?

'The poet and the dreamer are distinct,

'Diverse, sheer opposite, antipodes.

'The one pours out a balm upon the world,

'The other vexes it.' Then shouted I

Spite of myself, and with a Pythia's spleen,

'Apollo! faded! O far flown Apollo!

'Where is thy misty pestilence to creep

'Into the dwellings, through the door crannies

'Of all mock lyrists, large self worshipers,

'And careless Hectorers in proud bad verse.

'Though I breathe death with them it will be life

'To see them sprawl before me into graves.

'Majestic shadow, tell me where I am,

'Whose altar this; for whom this incense curls;

'What image this whose face I cannot see,

'For the broad marble knees; and who thou art,

'Of accent feminine so courteous?'

Then the tall shade, in drooping linens veil'd,

Spoke out, so much more earnest, that her breath

Stirr'd the thin folds of gauze that drooping hung

About a golden censer from her hand

Pendent; and by her voice I knew she shed

Long treasured tears. 'This temple, sad and lone,

'Is all spar'd from the thunder of a war

'Foughten long since by giant hierarchy

'Against rebellion: this old image here,

'Whose carved features wrinkled as he fell,

'Is Saturn's; I Moneta, left supreme

'Sole priestess of this desolation.'

I had no words to answer, for my tongue,

Useless, could find about its roofed home

No syllable of a fit majesty

To make rejoinder to Moneta's mourn.

There was a silence, while the altar's blaze

Was fainting for sweet food: I look'd thereon,

And on the paved floor, where nigh were piled

Faggots of cinnamon, and many heaps

Of other crisped spice wood then again

I look'd upon the altar, and its horns

Whiten'd with ashes, and its lang'rous flame,

And then upon the offerings again;

And so by turns till sad Moneta cried,

'The sacrifice is done, but not the less

'Will I be kind to thee for thy good will.

'My power, which to me is still a curse,

'Shall be to thee a wonder; for the scenes

'Still swooning vivid through my globed brain

'With an electral changing misery

'Thou shalt with those dull mortal eyes behold,

'Free from all pain, if wonder pain thee not.'

As near as an immortal's sphered words

Could to a mother's soften, were these last:

And yet I had a terror of her robes,

And chiefly of the veils, that from her brow

Hung pale, and curtain'd her in mysteries

That made my heart too small to hold its blood.

This saw that Goddess, and with sacred hand

Parted the veils. Then saw I a wan face,

Not pin'd by human sorrows, but bright blanch'd

By an immortal sickness which kills not;

It works a constant change, which happy death

Can put no end to; deathwards progressing

To no death was that visage; it had pass'd

The lily and the snow; and beyond these

I must not think now, though I saw that face

But for her eyes I should have fled away.

They held me back, with a benignant light

Soft mitigated by divinest lids

Half closed, and visionless entire they seem'd

Of all external things; they saw me not,

But in blank splendour beam'd like the mild moon,

Who comforts those she sees not, who knows not

What eyes are upward cast. As I had found

A grain of gold upon a mountain side,

And twing'd with avarice strain'd out my eyes

To search its sullen entrails rich with ore,

So at the view of sad Moneta's brow

I ach'd to see what things the hollow brain

Behind enwombed: what high tragedy

In the dark secret chambers of her skull

Was acting, that could give so dread a stress

To her cold lips, and fill with such a light

Her planetary eyes, and touch her voice

With such a sorrow 'Shade of Memory!'

Cried I, with act adorant at her feet,

'By all the gloom hung round thy fallen house,

'By this last temple, by the golden age,

'By great Apollo, thy dear Foster Child,

'And by thyself, forlorn divinity,

'The pale Omega of a withered race,

'Let me behold, according as thou saidst,

'What in thy brain so ferments to and fro!'

No sooner had this conjuration pass'd

My devout lips, than side by side we stood

(Like a stunt bramble by a solemn pine)

Deep in the shady sadness of a vale,

Far sunken from the healthy breath of morn,

Far from the fiery noon and eve's one star.

Onward I look'd beneath the gloomy boughs,

And saw, what first I thought an image huge,

Like to the image pedestal'd so high

In Saturn's temple. Then Moneta's voice

Came brief upon mine ear 'So Saturn sat

When he had lost his realms ' whereon there grew

A power within me of enormous ken

To see as a god sees, and take the depth

Of things as nimbly as the outward eye

Can size and shape pervade. The lofty theme

At those few words hung vast before my mind,

With half unravel'd web. I set myself

Upon an eagle's watch, that I might see,

And seeing ne'er forget. No stir of life

Was in this shrouded vale, not so much air

As in the zoning of a summer's day

Robs not one light seed from the feather'd grass,

But where the dead leaf fell there did it rest.

A stream went voiceless by, still deaden'd more

By reason of the fallen divinity

Spreading more shade; the Naiad 'mid her reeds

Press'd her cold finger closer to her lips.

Along the margin sand large footmarks went

No farther than to where old Saturn's feet

Had rested, and there slept, how long a sleep!

Degraded, cold, upon the sodden ground

His old right hand lay nerveless, listless, dead,

Unsceptred; and his realmless eyes were clos'd,

While his bow'd head seem'd listening to the Earth,

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.

Then came the griev'd voice of Mnemosyne,

And griev'd I hearken'd. 'That divinity

'Whom thou saw'st step from yon forlornest wood,

'And with slow pace approach our fallen King,

'Is Thea, softest natur'd of our brood.'

I mark'd the Goddess in fair statuary

Surpassing wan Moneta by the head,

And in her sorrow nearer woman's tears.

There was a listening fear in her regard,

As if calamity had but begun;

As if the vanward clouds of evil days

Had spent their malice, and the sullen rear

Was with its stored thunder labouring up.

One hand she press'd upon that aching spot

Where beats the human heart, as if just there,

Though an immortal, she felt cruel pain;

The other upon Saturn's bended neck

She laid, and to the level of his hollow ear

Leaning with parted lips, some words she spake

In solemn tenor and deep organ tune;

Some mourning words, which in our feeble tongue

Would come in this like accenting; how frail

To that large utterance of the early Gods!

'Saturn! look up and for what, poor lost King?

'I have no comfort for thee; no not one;

'I cannot cry, Wherefore thus sleepest thou?

'For Heaven is parted from thee, and the Earth

'Knows thee not, so afflicted, for a God;

'And Ocean too, with all its solemn noise,

'Has from thy sceptre pass'd, and all the air

'Is emptied of thine hoary majesty:

'Thy thunder, captious at the new command,

'Rumbles reluctant o'er our fallen house;

'And thy sharp lightning, in unpracticed hands,

'Scorches and burns our once serene domain.

'With such remorseless speed still come new woes,

'That unbelief has not a space to breathe.

'Saturn! sleep on: Me thoughtless, why should I

'Thus violate thy slumbrous solitude?

'Why should I ope thy melancholy eyes?

'Saturn, sleep on, while at thy feet I weep.'

As when upon a tranced summer night

Forests, branch charmed by the earnest stars,

Dream, and so dream all night without a noise,

Save from one gradual solitary gust,

Swelling upon the silence; dying off;

As if the ebbing air had but one wave;

So came these words, and went; the while in tears

She press'd her fair large forehead to the earth,

Just where her fallen hair might spread in curls

A soft and silken mat for Saturn's feet.

Long, long those two were postured motionless,

Like sculpture builded up upon the grave

Of their own power. A long awful time

I look'd upon them: still they were the same;

The frozen God still bending to the earth,

And the sad Goddess weeping at his feet,

Moneta silent. Without stay or prop

But my own weak mortality, I bore

The load of this eternal quietude,

The unchanging gloom, and the three fixed shapes

Ponderous upon my senses, a whole moon.

For by my burning brain I measured sure

Her silver seasons shedded on the night,

And ever day by day methought I grew

More gaunt and ghostly. Oftentimes I pray'd

Intense, that Death would take me from the vale

And all its burthens gasping with despair

Of change, hour after hour I curs'd myself;

Until old Saturn rais'd his faded eyes,

And look'd around and saw his kingdom gone,

And all the gloom and sorrow of the place,

And that fair kneeling Goddess at his feet.

As the moist scent of flowers, and grass, and leaves

Fills forest dells with a pervading air,

Known to the woodland nostril, so the words

Of Saturn fill'd the mossy glooms around,

Even to the hollows of time eaten oaks

And to the windings of the foxes' hole,

With sad low tones, while thus he spake, and sent

Strange musings to the solitary Pan.

'Moan, brethren, moan; for we are swallow'd up

'And buried from all Godlike exercise

'Of influence benign on planets pale,

'And peaceful sway above man's harvesting,

'And all those acts which Deity supreme

'Doth ease its heart of love in. Moan and wail,

'Moan, brethren, moan; for lo, the rebel spheres

'Spin round, the stars their ancient courses keep,

'Clouds still with shadowy moisture haunt the earth,

'Still suck their fill of light from sun and moon,

'Still buds the tree, and still the sea shores murmur;

'There is no death in all the Universe,

'No smell of death there shall be death Moan, moan,

'Moan, Cybele, moan; for thy pernicious babes

'Have changed a God into a shaking Palsy.

'Moan, brethren, moan, for I have no strength left,

'Weak as the reed weak feeble as my voice

'O, O, the pain, the pain of feebleness.

'Moan, moan, for still I thaw or give me help;

'Throw down those imps, and give me victory.

'Let me hear other groans, and trumpets blown

'Of triumph calm, and hymns of festival

'From the gold peaks of Heaven's high piled clouds;

'Voices of soft proclaim, and silver stir

'Of strings in hollow shells; and let there be

'Beautiful things made new, for the surprise

'Of the sky children.' So he feebly ceas'd,

With such a poor and sickly sounding pause,

Methought I heard some old man of the earth

Bewailing earthly loss; nor could my eyes

And ears act with that pleasant unison of sense

Which marries sweet sound with the grace of form,

And dolorous accent from a tragic harp

With large limb'd visions. More I scrutinized:

Still fix'd he sat beneath the sable trees,

Whose arms spread straggling in wild serpent forms,

With leaves all hush'd; his awful presence there

(Now all was silent) gave a deadly lie

To what I erewhile heard only his lips

Trembled amid the white curls of his beard.

They told the truth, though, round, the snowy locks

Hung nobly, as upon the face of heaven

A mid day fleece of clouds. Thea arose,

And stretched her white arm through the hollow dark,

Pointing some whither: whereat he too rose

Like a vast giant, seen by men at sea

To grow pale from the waves at dull midnight.

They melted from my sight into the woods;

Ere I could turn, Moneta cried, 'These twain

'Are speeding to the families of grief,

'Where roof'd in by black rocks they waste, in pain

'And darkness, for no hope.' And she spake on,

As ye may read who can unwearied pass

Onward from the antechamber of this dream,

Where even at the open doors awhile

I must delay, and glean my memory

Of her high phrase: perhaps no further dare.

CANTO II

 'Mortal, that thou may'st understand aright,

'I humanize my sayings to thine ear,

'Making comparisons of earthly things;

'Or thou might'st better listen to the wind,

'Whose language is to thee a barren noise,

'Though it blows legend laden through the trees.

'In melancholy realms big tears are shed,

'More sorrow like to this, and such like woe,

'Too huge for mortal tongue, or pen of scribe.

'The Titans fierce, self hid or prison bound,

'Groan for the old allegiance once more,

'Listening in their doom for Saturn's voice.

'But one of our whole eagle brood still keeps

'His sov'reignty, and rule, and majesty;

'Blazing Hyperion on his orbed fire

'Still sits, still snuffs the incense teeming up

'From man to the sun's God: yet unsecure,

'For as upon the earth dire prodigies

'Fright and perplex, so also shudders he:

'Nor at dog's howl or gloom bird's Even screech,

'Or the familiar visitings of one

'Upon the first toll of his passing bell:

'But horrors, portioned to a giant nerve,

'Make great Hyperion ache. His palace bright,

'Bastion'd with pyramids of glowing gold,

'And touch'd with shade of bronzed obelisks,

'Glares a blood red through all the thousand courts,

'Arches, and domes, and fiery galleries:

'And all its curtains of Aurorian clouds

'Flush angerly; when he would taste the wreaths

'Of incense breath'd aloft from sacred hills,

'Instead of sweets his ample palate takes

'Savour of poisonous brass and metals sick.

'Wherefore when harbour'd in the sleepy West,

'After the full completion of fair day,

'For rest divine upon exalted couch

'And slumber in the arms of melody,

'He paces through the pleasant hours of ease

'With strides colossal, on from hall to hall;

'While far within each aisle and deep recess

'His winged minions in close clusters stand

'Amaz'd, and full of fear; like anxious men,

'Who on a wide plain gather in sad troops,

'When earthquakes jar their battlements and towers.

'Even now, while Saturn, roused from icy trance,

'Goes step for step with Thea from yon woods,

'Hyperion, leaving twilight in the rear,

'Is sloping to the threshold of the West.

'Thither we tend.' Now in clear light I stood,

Reliev'd from the dusk vale. Mnemosyne Was sitting on a square edg'd polish'd stone,

That in its lucid depth reflected pure

Her priestess garments. My quick eyes ran on

From stately nave to nave, from vault to vault,

Through bow'rs of fragrant and enwreathed light

And diamond paved lustrous long arcades.

Anon rush'd by the bright Hyperion;

His flaming robes stream'd out beyond his heels,

And gave a roar, as if of earthly fire,

That scared away the meek ethereal hours

And made their dove wings tremble. On he flared.

THE END

1819