'Tis said these blossom-lanterns lightThe elves upon their midnight way;That fairy toil and elfin playReceive their beams of magic white.I marvel not if it be true;I know this flower has lighted meNearer to Beauty's mystery,And past the veils of secrets new.
'Tis said these blossom-lanterns lightThe elves upon their midnight way;That fairy toil and elfin playReceive their beams of magic white.
I marvel not if it be true;I know this flower has lighted meNearer to Beauty's mystery,And past the veils of secrets new.
Poised as a god whose lone, detachèd post,An eyrie, pends between the boundary-marksOf finite years, and those unvaried darksThat veil Eternity, I saw the hostOf worlds and suns, swept from the furthermostOf night—confusion as of dust with sparks—Whirl tow'rd the opposing brink; as one who harksSome warning trumpet, Time, a withered ghost,Fled with them; disunited orbs that lateWere atoms of the universal frame,They passed to some eternal fragment-heap.And, lo, the gods, from space discorporate,Who were its life and vital spirit, came,Drawn outward by the vampire-lips of Sleep!
Poised as a god whose lone, detachèd post,An eyrie, pends between the boundary-marksOf finite years, and those unvaried darksThat veil Eternity, I saw the hostOf worlds and suns, swept from the furthermostOf night—confusion as of dust with sparks—Whirl tow'rd the opposing brink; as one who harksSome warning trumpet, Time, a withered ghost,Fled with them; disunited orbs that lateWere atoms of the universal frame,They passed to some eternal fragment-heap.And, lo, the gods, from space discorporate,Who were its life and vital spirit, came,Drawn outward by the vampire-lips of Sleep!
Lo, what are these, the gyres of sun and world,Fulfilled with daylight by each toiling sun—Lo, what are these but webs of radiance spunBeneath the roof of Night, and torn or furledBy Night at will? All opposite powers upwhirledAre less than chaff to this imperious one—As wind-tossed chaff, until its sport be done,Scattered, and lifted up, and downward hurled.All gyres are held within the path unspannedOf Night's aeonian compass—loosely pentAs with the embrace of lethal-tightening weight;All suns are grasped within the hollow handOf Night, the godhead sole, omnipotent,Whose other names are Nemesis and Fate.
Lo, what are these, the gyres of sun and world,Fulfilled with daylight by each toiling sun—Lo, what are these but webs of radiance spunBeneath the roof of Night, and torn or furledBy Night at will? All opposite powers upwhirledAre less than chaff to this imperious one—As wind-tossed chaff, until its sport be done,Scattered, and lifted up, and downward hurled.
All gyres are held within the path unspannedOf Night's aeonian compass—loosely pentAs with the embrace of lethal-tightening weight;All suns are grasped within the hollow handOf Night, the godhead sole, omnipotent,Whose other names are Nemesis and Fate.
Methought the world was bound with final frost;The sun, made hueless as with fear and awe,Illumined yet the lands it could not thaw.Then on my road, with instant evening crost,Death stood, and in its shadowy films enwound,Mine eyes forgot the light, until I cameWhere poured the inseparate, unshadowed flameOf phantom suns in self-irradiance drowned.Death lay revealed in all its haggardness—Immitigable wastes horizonless;Profundities that held nor bar nor veil;All hues wherewith the suns and worlds were dyedIn light invariable nullified;All darkness rendered shelterless and pale.
Methought the world was bound with final frost;The sun, made hueless as with fear and awe,Illumined yet the lands it could not thaw.Then on my road, with instant evening crost,Death stood, and in its shadowy films enwound,Mine eyes forgot the light, until I cameWhere poured the inseparate, unshadowed flameOf phantom suns in self-irradiance drowned.
Death lay revealed in all its haggardness—Immitigable wastes horizonless;Profundities that held nor bar nor veil;All hues wherewith the suns and worlds were dyedIn light invariable nullified;All darkness rendered shelterless and pale.
Turn round, O Life, and know with eyes aghastThe breast that fed thee—Death, disguiseless, stern;Even now, within thy mouth, from tomb and urn,The dust is sweet. All nurture that thou hastWas once as thou, and fed with lips made fastOn Death, whose sateless mouth it fed in turn.Kingdoms debased, and thrones that starward yearn,All are but ghouls that batten on the past.Monstrous and dread, must it fore'er abide,This unescapable alternity?Must loveliness find root within decay,And night devour its flaming hues alway?Sickening, will Life not turn eventually,Or ravenous Death at last be satisfied?
Turn round, O Life, and know with eyes aghastThe breast that fed thee—Death, disguiseless, stern;Even now, within thy mouth, from tomb and urn,The dust is sweet. All nurture that thou hastWas once as thou, and fed with lips made fastOn Death, whose sateless mouth it fed in turn.Kingdoms debased, and thrones that starward yearn,All are but ghouls that batten on the past.
Monstrous and dread, must it fore'er abide,This unescapable alternity?Must loveliness find root within decay,And night devour its flaming hues alway?Sickening, will Life not turn eventually,Or ravenous Death at last be satisfied?
What hand is this, that unresisted gripsMy spirit as with chains, and from the soundAnd light of dreams, compels me to the boundWhere darkness waits with wide, expectant lips?Albeit thereat my footing holds, nor slips,The threats of that Omnipotence confoundAll days and hours of gladness, girt aroundWith sense of near, unswervable eclipse.So lies a land whose noon is plagued with whirrOf bats, than their own shadows swarthier,Whose flight is traced on roofs of white abodes,Wherein from court to court, from room to room,In hieroglyphics of abhorrent doom,Is slowly trailed the slime of crawling toads.
What hand is this, that unresisted gripsMy spirit as with chains, and from the soundAnd light of dreams, compels me to the boundWhere darkness waits with wide, expectant lips?Albeit thereat my footing holds, nor slips,The threats of that Omnipotence confoundAll days and hours of gladness, girt aroundWith sense of near, unswervable eclipse.
So lies a land whose noon is plagued with whirrOf bats, than their own shadows swarthier,Whose flight is traced on roofs of white abodes,Wherein from court to court, from room to room,In hieroglyphics of abhorrent doom,Is slowly trailed the slime of crawling toads.
A plummet of the changing universe,Far-cast, I flareThrough gulfs the sun's uncharted orbits bind,And spaces bareThat intermediate darks immerseBy road of sun nor world confined.Upon my star-undominated gyreI mark the systems vanish one by one;Among the swarming worlds I lunge,And sudden plungeClose to the zones of solar fire;Or 'mid the mighty wrack of stars undone,Flash, and with momentary raysCompel the dark to yieldTheir aimless forms, whose once far-potent blazeIn ashes chill is now inurned.A space revealed,I see their planets turned,Where holders of the heritage of breathExultant rose, and sank to barren deathBeneath the stars' unheeding eyes.Adown contiguous skiesI pass the thickening brumeOf systems yet unshaped, that hang immenseAlong mysterious shores of gloom;Or see—unimplicated in their doom—The final and disastrous gyreOf blinded suns that meet,And from their mingled heat,And battle-clouds intense,O'erspread the deep with fire.Through stellar labyrinths I thridMine orbit placed amidThe multiple and irised stars, or hid,Unsolved and intricate,In many a planet-swinging sun's estate.Ofttimes I steal in solitary flightAlong the rim of the exterior nightThat grips the universe;And then return,Past outer footholds of sidereal light,To where the systems gather and disperse;And dip again into the web of things,To watch it shift and burn,Hearted with stars. On peaceless wingsI pierce, where deep-outstripping all surmise,The nether heavens drop unsunned,By stars and planets shunned.And then I riseThrough vaulting gloom, to watch the darkSnatch at the flame of failing suns;Or markThe heavy-dusked and silent skies,Strewn thick with wrecked and broken stars,Where many a fated orbit runs.An arrow sped from some eternal bow,Through change of firmaments and systems sent,And finding bourn nor bars,I flee, nor knowFor what eternal mark my flight is meant.
A plummet of the changing universe,Far-cast, I flareThrough gulfs the sun's uncharted orbits bind,And spaces bareThat intermediate darks immerseBy road of sun nor world confined.Upon my star-undominated gyreI mark the systems vanish one by one;Among the swarming worlds I lunge,And sudden plungeClose to the zones of solar fire;Or 'mid the mighty wrack of stars undone,Flash, and with momentary raysCompel the dark to yieldTheir aimless forms, whose once far-potent blazeIn ashes chill is now inurned.A space revealed,I see their planets turned,Where holders of the heritage of breathExultant rose, and sank to barren deathBeneath the stars' unheeding eyes.Adown contiguous skiesI pass the thickening brumeOf systems yet unshaped, that hang immenseAlong mysterious shores of gloom;Or see—unimplicated in their doom—The final and disastrous gyreOf blinded suns that meet,And from their mingled heat,And battle-clouds intense,O'erspread the deep with fire.
Through stellar labyrinths I thridMine orbit placed amidThe multiple and irised stars, or hid,Unsolved and intricate,In many a planet-swinging sun's estate.Ofttimes I steal in solitary flightAlong the rim of the exterior nightThat grips the universe;And then return,Past outer footholds of sidereal light,To where the systems gather and disperse;And dip again into the web of things,To watch it shift and burn,Hearted with stars. On peaceless wingsI pierce, where deep-outstripping all surmise,The nether heavens drop unsunned,By stars and planets shunned.And then I riseThrough vaulting gloom, to watch the darkSnatch at the flame of failing suns;Or markThe heavy-dusked and silent skies,Strewn thick with wrecked and broken stars,Where many a fated orbit runs.An arrow sped from some eternal bow,Through change of firmaments and systems sent,And finding bourn nor bars,I flee, nor knowFor what eternal mark my flight is meant.
Old Egypt's gods, Osiris, Ammon, Thoth,Came on my dream in thunder, and their feetRevealed, were as the levin's fire and heat.The hosts of Rome, the Arab and the GothHave left their altars dark, yet stern and wrothIn olden power they stood, whose wings were fleet,And mighty as with strength of storms that meetIn mingled foam of clouds and ocean-froth.Above my dream, with arch of dreaded wings,In judgement and in sentence of what crimeI knew not, sate the gods outcast of time.They passed, and lo, a plague of darkness fell,Unsleeping, and accurst with nameless things,And dreams that stood the ministers of Hell!
Old Egypt's gods, Osiris, Ammon, Thoth,Came on my dream in thunder, and their feetRevealed, were as the levin's fire and heat.The hosts of Rome, the Arab and the GothHave left their altars dark, yet stern and wrothIn olden power they stood, whose wings were fleet,And mighty as with strength of storms that meetIn mingled foam of clouds and ocean-froth.
Above my dream, with arch of dreaded wings,In judgement and in sentence of what crimeI knew not, sate the gods outcast of time.They passed, and lo, a plague of darkness fell,Unsleeping, and accurst with nameless things,And dreams that stood the ministers of Hell!
Thou hast taken the light of many suns,And they are sealed in the prison-house of gloom.Even as candle-flamesHast thou taken the souls of men,With winds from out a hollow place;They are hid in the abyss as in a sea,And the gulfs are over themAs the weight of many peaks,As the depth of many seas;Thy shields are between them and the light;They are past its burden and bitterness;The spears of the day shall not touch them,The chains of the sun shall not hale them forth.Many men there were,In the days that are now of thy realm,That thou hast sealed with the seal of many deeps;Their feet were as eagles' wings in the quest of Truth—Aye, mightily they desired her face,Hunting her through the lands of life,As men in the blankness of the wasteThat seek for a buried treasure-house of kings.But against them were the veilsThat hands may not rend nor sabers pierce;And Truth was withheld from them,As a water that is seen afar at dawn,And at noon is lost in the sandBefore the feet of the traveller.The world was a barrenness,And the gardens were as the waste.And they turned them to the adventure of the dark,To the travelling of the land without roads,To the sailing of the sea that hath no beacons.Why have they not returned?Their quest hath found end in thee,Or surely they had faredOnce more to the place whence they came,As men that have travelled to a fruitless land.They have looked on thy face,And to them it is the countenance of Truth.Thy silence is sweeter to them than the voice of love,Thine embrace more dear than the clasp of the beloved.They are fed with the emptiness past the veil,And their hunger is filled;They have found the waters of peace,And are athirst no more.They know a rest that is deeper than the gulfs,And whose seal is unbreakable as the seal of the void;They sleep the sleep of the suns,And the vast is a garment unto them.
Thou hast taken the light of many suns,And they are sealed in the prison-house of gloom.Even as candle-flamesHast thou taken the souls of men,With winds from out a hollow place;They are hid in the abyss as in a sea,And the gulfs are over themAs the weight of many peaks,As the depth of many seas;Thy shields are between them and the light;They are past its burden and bitterness;The spears of the day shall not touch them,The chains of the sun shall not hale them forth.
Many men there were,In the days that are now of thy realm,That thou hast sealed with the seal of many deeps;Their feet were as eagles' wings in the quest of Truth—Aye, mightily they desired her face,Hunting her through the lands of life,As men in the blankness of the wasteThat seek for a buried treasure-house of kings.But against them were the veilsThat hands may not rend nor sabers pierce;And Truth was withheld from them,As a water that is seen afar at dawn,And at noon is lost in the sandBefore the feet of the traveller.The world was a barrenness,And the gardens were as the waste.And they turned them to the adventure of the dark,To the travelling of the land without roads,To the sailing of the sea that hath no beacons.Why have they not returned?Their quest hath found end in thee,Or surely they had faredOnce more to the place whence they came,As men that have travelled to a fruitless land.They have looked on thy face,And to them it is the countenance of Truth.Thy silence is sweeter to them than the voice of love,Thine embrace more dear than the clasp of the beloved.They are fed with the emptiness past the veil,And their hunger is filled;They have found the waters of peace,And are athirst no more.They know a rest that is deeper than the gulfs,And whose seal is unbreakable as the seal of the void;They sleep the sleep of the suns,And the vast is a garment unto them.
I dreamed that each most lovely, perfect thingThat Nature hath, of sound, and form, and hue—The winds, the grass, the light-concentering dew,The gleam and swiftness of the sea-bird's wing;Blueness of sea and sky, and gold of stormTransmuted by the sunset, and the flameOf autumn-colored leaves, before me came,And, meeting, merged to one diviner form.Incarnate Beauty 'twas, whose spirit thrillsThrough glaucous ocean and the greener hills,And in the cloud-bewildered peaks is pent.Like some descended star she hovered o'er,But as I gazed, in doubt and wonderment,Mine eyes were dazzled, and I saw no more.
I dreamed that each most lovely, perfect thingThat Nature hath, of sound, and form, and hue—The winds, the grass, the light-concentering dew,The gleam and swiftness of the sea-bird's wing;Blueness of sea and sky, and gold of stormTransmuted by the sunset, and the flameOf autumn-colored leaves, before me came,And, meeting, merged to one diviner form.
Incarnate Beauty 'twas, whose spirit thrillsThrough glaucous ocean and the greener hills,And in the cloud-bewildered peaks is pent.Like some descended star she hovered o'er,But as I gazed, in doubt and wonderment,Mine eyes were dazzled, and I saw no more.
All drear and barren seemed the hours,That passed rain-swept and tempest-blown.The dead leaves fell like brownish notesWithin the rain's grey monotone.There came a lapse between the showers;The clouds grew rich with sunset gleams;Then o'er the sky a rainbow sprang—A bridge unto the Land of Dreams.
All drear and barren seemed the hours,That passed rain-swept and tempest-blown.The dead leaves fell like brownish notesWithin the rain's grey monotone.
There came a lapse between the showers;The clouds grew rich with sunset gleams;Then o'er the sky a rainbow sprang—A bridge unto the Land of Dreams.
How marvellous this bit of greenI hold, and soon shall throw away!Its subtile veins, its vivid sheen,Seem fragment of a god's array.In all the hidden toil of earth,Which is the more laborious part—To rear the oak's enormous girth,Or shape its leaves with poignant art?
How marvellous this bit of greenI hold, and soon shall throw away!Its subtile veins, its vivid sheen,Seem fragment of a god's array.
In all the hidden toil of earth,Which is the more laborious part—To rear the oak's enormous girth,Or shape its leaves with poignant art?
O little lances, dipped in grey,And set in order straight and clean,How delicately clear and keenYour points against the sapphire day!Attesting Nature's perfect artYe fringe the limpid firmament,O little lances, keenly sentTo pierce with beauty to the heart!
O little lances, dipped in grey,And set in order straight and clean,How delicately clear and keenYour points against the sapphire day!
Attesting Nature's perfect artYe fringe the limpid firmament,O little lances, keenly sentTo pierce with beauty to the heart!
Thy light is as an eminence unto thee,And thou are upheld by the pillars of thy strength.Thy power is a foundation for the worlds;They are builded thereon as upon a lofty rockWhereto no enemy hath access.Thou puttest forth thy rays, and they hold the skyAs in the hollow of an immense hand.Thou erectest thy light as four walls,And a roof with many beams and pillars.Thy flame is a stronghold based as a mountain;Its bastions are tall, and firm like stone.The worlds are bound with the ropes of thy will;Like steeds are they stayed and contrainedBy the reins of invisible lightnings.With bands that are stouter than iron manifold,And stronger than the cords of the gulfs,Thou withholdest them from the brinkOf outward and perilous deeps,Lest they perish in the desolations of the night,Or be stricken of strange suns;Lest they be caught in the pitfalls of the abyss,Or fall into the furnace of Arcturus.Thy law is as a shore unto them,And they are restrained thereby as the sea.Thou art food and drink to the worlds;Yea, by thy toil are they sustained,That they fail not upon the road of space,Whose goal is Hercules.When thy pillars of force are withdrawn,And the walls of thy light fall inward,Borne down by the sundering night,And thy head is covered with the Shadow,The worlds shall wander as men bewilderedIn the sterile and lifeless waste.Athirst and unfed shall they be,When the springs of thy strength are dust,And thy fields of light are black with dearth.They shall perish from the waysThat thou showest no longer,And emptiness shall close above them.
Thy light is as an eminence unto thee,And thou are upheld by the pillars of thy strength.Thy power is a foundation for the worlds;They are builded thereon as upon a lofty rockWhereto no enemy hath access.Thou puttest forth thy rays, and they hold the skyAs in the hollow of an immense hand.Thou erectest thy light as four walls,And a roof with many beams and pillars.Thy flame is a stronghold based as a mountain;Its bastions are tall, and firm like stone.
The worlds are bound with the ropes of thy will;Like steeds are they stayed and contrainedBy the reins of invisible lightnings.With bands that are stouter than iron manifold,And stronger than the cords of the gulfs,Thou withholdest them from the brinkOf outward and perilous deeps,Lest they perish in the desolations of the night,Or be stricken of strange suns;Lest they be caught in the pitfalls of the abyss,Or fall into the furnace of Arcturus.Thy law is as a shore unto them,And they are restrained thereby as the sea.
Thou art food and drink to the worlds;Yea, by thy toil are they sustained,That they fail not upon the road of space,Whose goal is Hercules.When thy pillars of force are withdrawn,And the walls of thy light fall inward,Borne down by the sundering night,And thy head is covered with the Shadow,The worlds shall wander as men bewilderedIn the sterile and lifeless waste.Athirst and unfed shall they be,When the springs of thy strength are dust,And thy fields of light are black with dearth.They shall perish from the waysThat thou showest no longer,And emptiness shall close above them.
O fugitive fragrancesThat tremble heavenwardUnceasing, or if ye linger,Halt but as memoriesOn the verge of forgetfulness,Why must ye pass so fleetlyOn wings that are less than wind,To a death unknowable?Soon ye are gone, and the airForgets your faint unrestIn the garden's breathlessness,Where fall the snows of silence.
O fugitive fragrancesThat tremble heavenwardUnceasing, or if ye linger,Halt but as memoriesOn the verge of forgetfulness,Why must ye pass so fleetlyOn wings that are less than wind,To a death unknowable?Soon ye are gone, and the airForgets your faint unrestIn the garden's breathlessness,Where fall the snows of silence.
Where mandrakes, crying from the moonless fen,Told how a witch, with gaze of owl or batFound, and each root malevolently fatPulled for her waiting cauldron, on my kenUpstole, escaping to the world of men,A vapor as of some infernal vat;Against the stars it clomb, and caught thereatAs if their bright regard to veil again.Despite the web, methought they saw, appalled,The stealthier weft in which all sound was still ...Then sprang, as if the night found breath anew,A wind whereby the stars were disenthralled ...Far off, I heard the cry of frustrate ill—A witch that wailed above her curdled brew.
Where mandrakes, crying from the moonless fen,Told how a witch, with gaze of owl or batFound, and each root malevolently fatPulled for her waiting cauldron, on my kenUpstole, escaping to the world of men,A vapor as of some infernal vat;Against the stars it clomb, and caught thereatAs if their bright regard to veil again.
Despite the web, methought they saw, appalled,The stealthier weft in which all sound was still ...Then sprang, as if the night found breath anew,A wind whereby the stars were disenthralled ...Far off, I heard the cry of frustrate ill—A witch that wailed above her curdled brew.
Haggard as if resurgent from a tomb,The moon uprears her ghastly, shrunken head,Crowned with such light as flares upon the deadFrom pallid skies more death-like than the gloom.Now fall her beams till slope and plain assumeThe whiteness of a land whence life is fled;And shadows that a sepulcher might shedMove livid as the stealthy hands of doom.O'er rigid hills and valleys locked and mute,A pallor steals as of a world made stillWhen Death, that erst had crept, stands absolute—An earth now frozen fast by power of eyesThat malefice and purposed silence fill,The gaze of that Medusa of the skies.
Haggard as if resurgent from a tomb,The moon uprears her ghastly, shrunken head,Crowned with such light as flares upon the deadFrom pallid skies more death-like than the gloom.Now fall her beams till slope and plain assumeThe whiteness of a land whence life is fled;And shadows that a sepulcher might shedMove livid as the stealthy hands of doom.
O'er rigid hills and valleys locked and mute,A pallor steals as of a world made stillWhen Death, that erst had crept, stands absolute—An earth now frozen fast by power of eyesThat malefice and purposed silence fill,The gaze of that Medusa of the skies.
The twilight reigns above the fallen noonWithin an ancient land, whose after-timeLies like a shadow o'er its ruined prime.Like rising mist the night increases soonRound shattered palaces, ere yet the moonOn mute, unsentried walls and turrets climb,And touch with whiteness of sepulchral rimeThe desert where a city's bones are strewn.She comes at last; unburied, thick, they showIn all the hoary nakedness of stone.From out a shadow like the lips of DeathIssues a wind, that through the stillness blown,Cries like a prophet's ghost with wailing breathThe weirds of finished and forgotten woe.
The twilight reigns above the fallen noonWithin an ancient land, whose after-timeLies like a shadow o'er its ruined prime.Like rising mist the night increases soonRound shattered palaces, ere yet the moonOn mute, unsentried walls and turrets climb,And touch with whiteness of sepulchral rimeThe desert where a city's bones are strewn.
She comes at last; unburied, thick, they showIn all the hoary nakedness of stone.From out a shadow like the lips of DeathIssues a wind, that through the stillness blown,Cries like a prophet's ghost with wailing breathThe weirds of finished and forgotten woe.
From the final reach of the upper nightTo the nether darks where the comets die,From the outmost bourn of the reigns of lightTo the central gloom of the midmost sky,In our mazeful gyres we fly.And our flight is a choral chant of flame,That ceaseless fares to the outer void,With the undersong of the peopled spheres,The voices of comet and asteroid,And the wail of the spheres destroyed.Forever we sing to a god unseen—In the dark shall our voices fail?The void is his robe inviolate,The night is his awful veil—How our fires grow dim and pale!From the ordered gyres goes ever afarOur song of flame o'er the void unknown,Where circles nor world, nor comet, nor star.Shall it die ere it reach His throne?On the shoreless deeps of the seas of gloomSailing, we venture afar and wide,Where ever await the tempests of doom,Where the silent maelstroms lurk and hide,And the darkling reefs abide.And the change and ruin of stars is a songThat rises and ebbs in a tide of fire—A music whose notes are of dreadful flame,Whose harmonies ever leap high'rWhere the suns and the worlds expire.Is such music not fit for a god?Yet ever the deep is a dark,And ever the night is a void,Nor brightens a word nor a markTo show if our God may hark.From the gyres of change goes ever afarOur flaming chant o'er the deep unknown,The song of the death of planet and star.Shall it die ere it reach His throne?In our shadows of light the planets sweep,And endure for the span of our prime—Globed atoms that hazard the termless deepWith races that bow to the law of Time,And yet cherish a dream sublime.And they cry to the god behind the veil.Yet how should their voices pass the night,The silence that waits in the rayless void,If he hear not our music of light,And the thundrous song of our might?And they strive in the gloom for truth—Yet how should they pierce the veil,When we, with our splendors of flame,In the darkness faint and fail,Our fires how feeble and pale!From the ordered gyres goes ever afarOur song of flame o'er the void unknown,Where circles nor world, nor comet, nor star,Shall it die ere it reach His throne?
From the final reach of the upper nightTo the nether darks where the comets die,From the outmost bourn of the reigns of lightTo the central gloom of the midmost sky,In our mazeful gyres we fly.And our flight is a choral chant of flame,That ceaseless fares to the outer void,With the undersong of the peopled spheres,The voices of comet and asteroid,And the wail of the spheres destroyed.Forever we sing to a god unseen—In the dark shall our voices fail?The void is his robe inviolate,The night is his awful veil—How our fires grow dim and pale!
From the ordered gyres goes ever afarOur song of flame o'er the void unknown,Where circles nor world, nor comet, nor star.Shall it die ere it reach His throne?
On the shoreless deeps of the seas of gloomSailing, we venture afar and wide,Where ever await the tempests of doom,Where the silent maelstroms lurk and hide,And the darkling reefs abide.And the change and ruin of stars is a songThat rises and ebbs in a tide of fire—A music whose notes are of dreadful flame,Whose harmonies ever leap high'rWhere the suns and the worlds expire.Is such music not fit for a god?Yet ever the deep is a dark,And ever the night is a void,Nor brightens a word nor a markTo show if our God may hark.
From the gyres of change goes ever afarOur flaming chant o'er the deep unknown,The song of the death of planet and star.Shall it die ere it reach His throne?
In our shadows of light the planets sweep,And endure for the span of our prime—Globed atoms that hazard the termless deepWith races that bow to the law of Time,And yet cherish a dream sublime.And they cry to the god behind the veil.Yet how should their voices pass the night,The silence that waits in the rayless void,If he hear not our music of light,And the thundrous song of our might?And they strive in the gloom for truth—Yet how should they pierce the veil,When we, with our splendors of flame,In the darkness faint and fail,Our fires how feeble and pale!
From the ordered gyres goes ever afarOur song of flame o'er the void unknown,Where circles nor world, nor comet, nor star,Shall it die ere it reach His throne?
Around its walls the forests of the westGloom, as about some mystery's final paleMight lie its multifold exterior veil.Sculptured with signs and meanings unconfessed,Its lordly fanes and palaces attestA past before whose wall of darkness failReason and fancy, finding not the taleErased by time from history's palimpsest.Within this place, that from the gloom of EldStill meets the light, a people came and wentLike whirls of dust between its columns blown—An alien race, whose record, shadow-held,Is sealed with those of others long forespentThat died in sunless planets lost and lone.
Around its walls the forests of the westGloom, as about some mystery's final paleMight lie its multifold exterior veil.Sculptured with signs and meanings unconfessed,Its lordly fanes and palaces attestA past before whose wall of darkness failReason and fancy, finding not the taleErased by time from history's palimpsest.
Within this place, that from the gloom of EldStill meets the light, a people came and wentLike whirls of dust between its columns blown—An alien race, whose record, shadow-held,Is sealed with those of others long forespentThat died in sunless planets lost and lone.
A voice came to me from the night, and said,What profit hast thou in thy dreamingOf the years that are setAnd the years yet unrisen?Hast thou found them tillable lands?Is there fruit that thou canst pluck therein,Or any harvest to be mown?Shalt thou dig aught of gold from the mines of the past,Or trade for merchandiseIn the years where all is rotten?Are they a sea that will bring thee to any shore,Or a desert that vergeth upon aught but the waste?Shalt thou drink from the springs that are emptied,Or find sustenance in shadows?What value hath the future given thee?Is there aught in the days yet darkThat thou canst hold with thy hands?Are they a fortressThat will afford thee protectionAgainst the swords of the world?Is there justice in themTo balance the world's inequity,Or benefit to outweigh its loss?Then spake I in answer, saying,Of my dreams I have made a road,And my soul goeth out thereonTo that unto which no eye hath opened,Nor ear become keen to hearken—To the glories that are shut past all accessOf the keys of sense;Whose walls are hidden by the air,And whose doors are concealed with clarity.And the road is travelled of secret things,Coming to me from far—Of bodiless powers,And beauties without colour or formHolden by any loveliness seen of earth.And of my dreams have I builded an innWherein these are as guests.And unto it come the deadFor a little rest and refugeFrom the hollowness of the unharvestable wind,And the burden of too great space.The fields of the past are not void to me,Who harvest with the scythe of thought;Nor the orchards of future years unfruitfulTo the hands of visionings.I have retrieved from the darknessThe years and the things that were lost,And they are held in the light of my dreams,With the spirits of years unborn,And of things yet bodiless.As in an hospitable house,They shall live while the dreams abide.
A voice came to me from the night, and said,What profit hast thou in thy dreamingOf the years that are setAnd the years yet unrisen?Hast thou found them tillable lands?Is there fruit that thou canst pluck therein,Or any harvest to be mown?Shalt thou dig aught of gold from the mines of the past,Or trade for merchandiseIn the years where all is rotten?Are they a sea that will bring thee to any shore,Or a desert that vergeth upon aught but the waste?Shalt thou drink from the springs that are emptied,Or find sustenance in shadows?What value hath the future given thee?Is there aught in the days yet darkThat thou canst hold with thy hands?Are they a fortressThat will afford thee protectionAgainst the swords of the world?Is there justice in themTo balance the world's inequity,Or benefit to outweigh its loss?
Then spake I in answer, saying,Of my dreams I have made a road,And my soul goeth out thereonTo that unto which no eye hath opened,Nor ear become keen to hearken—To the glories that are shut past all accessOf the keys of sense;Whose walls are hidden by the air,And whose doors are concealed with clarity.And the road is travelled of secret things,Coming to me from far—Of bodiless powers,And beauties without colour or formHolden by any loveliness seen of earth.And of my dreams have I builded an innWherein these are as guests.And unto it come the deadFor a little rest and refugeFrom the hollowness of the unharvestable wind,And the burden of too great space.
The fields of the past are not void to me,Who harvest with the scythe of thought;Nor the orchards of future years unfruitfulTo the hands of visionings.I have retrieved from the darknessThe years and the things that were lost,And they are held in the light of my dreams,With the spirits of years unborn,And of things yet bodiless.As in an hospitable house,They shall live while the dreams abide.
The world upheld their pillars for awhile—Now, where imperial On and Memphis stood,The hot wind sifts across the solitudeThe sand that once was wall and peristyle,Or furrows like the main each desert mile,Where ocean-deep above its ancient foodOf cities fame-forgot, the waste is nude,Traceless as billows of each sunken pile.Lo! for that wrong shall vengeance come at last,When the devouring earth, in ruin oneWith royal walls and palaces undone,And sunk within the desolated past,Shall drift, and winds that wrangle through the vastImmingle it with ashes of the sun.
The world upheld their pillars for awhile—Now, where imperial On and Memphis stood,The hot wind sifts across the solitudeThe sand that once was wall and peristyle,Or furrows like the main each desert mile,Where ocean-deep above its ancient foodOf cities fame-forgot, the waste is nude,Traceless as billows of each sunken pile.
Lo! for that wrong shall vengeance come at last,When the devouring earth, in ruin oneWith royal walls and palaces undone,And sunk within the desolated past,Shall drift, and winds that wrangle through the vastImmingle it with ashes of the sun.
Now were the Titans gathered round their king,In a waste region slipping tow'rd the vergeOf drear extremities that clasp the world—A land half-moulded by the hasty gods,And left beneath the bright scorn of the stars,Grotesque, misfeatured, blackly gnarled with stone;Or worn and marred from conflict with the deepConterminate, of Chaos. Here they stood,Old Saturn midmost, like a central peakAmong the lesser hills that guard its base.Defeat, that gloamed within each countenanceLike the first tinge of death, upon a sunGathering like some dusk vapor, found them cold,Clumsy of limb, and halting as with weightOf threatened worlds and trembling firmaments.A wind cried round them like a trumpet-voiceOf phantom hosts—hurried, importunate,And intermittent with a tightening fear.Far off the sunset leapt, and the hard clouds,Molten among the peaks, seemed furnacesIn which to make the fetters of the world.Seared by the lightning of the younger gods,They saw, beyond the grim and crouching hills,Those levins thrust like spears into the heartOf swollen clouds, or tearing through the skyLike severing swords. Then, as the Titans watched,The night rose like a black, enormous mistAround them, wherein naught was visibleSave the sharp levin leaping in the north;And no sound came, except of seas remote,That seemed like Chaos ravening past the vergeOf all the world, fed with the crumbling coastsOf Matter.Till the moon, discoveringThat harsh swart wilderness of sand and stoneTissued and twisted in chaotic weld,Lit with illusory fire each Titan's form,They sate in silence, mute as stranded orbs—The wrack of Time, upcast on ruinous coasts,And in the slow withdrawal of the tideSafe for awhile. Small solace did they takeFrom that frore radiance glistering on the dullBlack desert gripped in iron silences,Like a false triumph o'er contestless fates,Or a mirage of life in wastes of Death.Yet were they moved to speak, and Saturn's voiceSeeming the soul of that tremendous landSet free in sound, startled the haughty stars."O Titans, gods, sustainers of the world,Is this the end? Must Earth go down to Chaos,Lacking our strength, beneath the unpracticed swayOf godlings vain, precipitate with youth,Who think, unrecking of disastrous chance,To bind their will as reins upon the sun,Or stand as columns to the ponderous heavens?Must we behold, with eyes of impotenceThat universal wrack, even though it whelmThese our usurpers in impartial doomBeneath the shards and fragments of the world?Were it not preferable to return,And meeting them in fight unswervable,Drag down the earth, ourselves, and these our foes,One sacrifice unto the gods of Chaos?Why should we stay, and live the tragedyOf power that survives its use?"Now spakeEnceladus, when that the echoingsOf Saturn's voice had fled remote, and seemedDead thunders caught and flung from star to star;"Wouldst hurl thy kingdom down the nightward gulf,Like to a stone a curious child might castTo test the fall of some dark precipice?Patience and caution should we take as mail,Not rashness for a weapon—too keen swordThat cuts the strainèd knot of destiny,Ne'er to be tied again. Were it not bestTo watch the slow procedure of the days,That we may grasp a time more opportune,When desperation is not all our strength,Nor the foe newly filled with victory?Then may we hope to conquer back thy realmFor thee, not for the gods of nothingness."He ceased, and after him no lesser godGave voice upon the shaken silences,None venturing to risk comparison,Inevitable then, of eloquenceWith his; but silence like the ambiguousnessOf signal and of lesser stars o'ercastAnd merged in one confusion by the moon,Possessed that multitude, till Saturn rose.Around his form the light intensified,And strengthened with addition wild and strange,Investing him as with a phantom robe,And gathering like a crown about his brow.His sword, whereon the shadows lay like rustHe took, and dipping it within the moon,Made clean its length of blade, and from it castSwift flickerings at the stars. And then his voiceCame like a torrent, and from out his eyesStreamed wilder power that mingled with the sound.* * * * *   * * * *   * * *   * * *And his resurgent power, in glance and word,Poured through the Titans' souls, and was becomeThe fountains of their own, and at his flameTheir fires were lit once more, whose restlessnessLeapt and aspired against the steadfast stars.And now they turned, majestic with resolve,Where, red upon the forefront of the north,Arcturus was a beacon to the winds.And with the flickering winds, that lightly struckThe desert dust, then sprang again in air,They passed athwart the foreland of the north.Against their march they saw the shrunken waste,A rivelled region like a world grown oldWhose sterile breast knew not the lips of LifeIn all its epoch; or a world that wasThe nurse of infant Death, ere he becameToo large, too strong for its restraining arms,And towered athwart the suns.And there they crossedMetallic slopes that rang like monstrous shields,But gave not to their tread, and clanging plainsLike body-mail of greater, vaster gods.Where hills made gibbous shadows in the moon,They heard the eldritch laughters of the wind,Seeming the mirth of death; and 'neath their gazeGaunt valleys deepened like an old despair.Yet strode they on, through the moon's fantasies,Bold with resolve, across a land like doubt.And now they passed among huge mountain-bulks,Themselves like peaks detached, and moving slow'Mid fettered brethren, adding weight and gloomTo that mute conclave great against the stars.Emerging thence, the Titans marched where stillTheir own portentous shadows went beforeLike night that fled but shrunk not, dusking allThat desert way.And thus they came where Sleep,The sleep of weary victory, had seizedThe younger gods as captives, borne beyondAll flight of mounting battle-ecstasiesIn that high triumph of forgetfulness.And on that sleep the striding Titans broke,Vague and immense at first like forming dreamsTo those disturbèd gods, in mist of drowsePurblind and doubtful yet, though soon they knewTheir erst-defeated foes, and rising stoodIn silent ranks expectant, that appearedTo move, with shaking of astonished firesThat bristled forth, or were displayed like plumesLate folded close, now trembling terribly,Pending between the desert and the stars.Then, sudden as the waking from a dream,The battle leapt, where striving shapes of godsMoved brightly through the whirled and stricken air,Sweeping it to a froth of fire; and allThat ancient, deep-established desert rocked,Shaken as by an onset of the gulfsOf gathered and impatient Chaos, while,Above the place where central battle burnedThe stars drew back in fright or dazzlement,Paling to more secluded distances.Lo, where the moon had wrought illusive dreamsThat clothed the wild in doubt and fantasy,Hiding its hideousness with bright mirage,Or deepening it with gulfs and glooms of Hell,Mightier confusion, chaos absoluteUpon the imperilled sky and trembling world,Now made a certainty within itself,The one thing sure in shaken sky or world.Maelstroms of battle caught in storms of fire,Torn and involved by weaponry of gods—Crescented blades that met with rounds of shields;Grappling of shapes, seen through the riven blazeAn instant, then once more obscure, and knownOnly by giant heavings of that warOf furious gods and roused elements,Divided, leagued, contending evermoreAlong the desert—these, augmentativeRound one thick center, stunned the faltering night.So huge that chaos, complicate withinWith movements of gigantic legionry,Antagonistic streams, impetuous-hurledWhere Jove and Saturn thunder-crested, ledIn fight unswervable—so wide the strifeOf differing impulse, that Decision foundNo foothold, till that first confusion shouldIn ordered conflict re-arrange, and standWith its true forces known. This seemed remote,With that wide struggle pending terribly,As if all-various, colored Time had madeA truce with white Eternity, and bothStood watching from afar.Through drifts of hazeThe broadening moon, made ominous with red,Glared from the westering night. And now that warBuilt for itself, far up, a cope of cloud,And drew it down, far off, upon all sides,Impervious to the moon and sworded stars.And by their own wild light the gods fought on'Neath that stupendous concave like a skyFilled and illumed with glare of bursting suns.And cast by their own light, upon that skyThe gods' own shadows moved like shapen gloom,Phantasmagoric, changed and amplified,A shifting frieze that flickered dreadfullyIn spectral battle indecisive. Then,Swift, as it had begun, the contest turned,And on the heaving Titans' massive frontIt seemed that all the motion and the strengthSelf-thwarting and confounded, of that strife,Was flung in centered impact terrible,With rush of all that fire, tempestuous-blownAs if before some wind of further space,Striking the earth. Lo, all the Titans' flameBent back upon themselves, and they were hurledIn vaster disarray, with vanguard piledOn rear and center. Saturn could not stemThe loosened torrents of long-pent defeat;He, with his host, was but as drift thereon,Borne wildly down the whelmed and reeling world.Hurling like slanted rain, the lurid levinFell o'er that flight of Titans, and behind,In striding menace, all-victorious JoveLoomed like some craggy cloud with thunders crownedAnd footed with the winds. In that defeat,With Jove's pursuit involved and manifold,Few found escape unscathed, and some went downLike senile suns that grapple with the dark,And reel in flame tremendous, and are still.Ebbing, the battle left those elder godsUpcast once more on coasts of black defeat—Gripped in despair, a vaster Tartarus.The victor gods, their storms and thunders spent,Went dwindling northward like embattled clouds,And where the lingering haze of fight dissolved,The pallor of the dawn began to spreadOn darkness purple like the pain of Death.Ringed with that desolation, Saturn stoodMute, and the Titans answered unto himWith brother silence. Motionless, they seemedSome peristyle or range of columns great,Alone enduring of a fallen faneIn deserts of some vaster world whence LifeAnd Faith have vanished long, that vaguely slipsTo an immemoried end. And twilight slowCrept round those lofty shapes august, and seemedSuch as might be the faltering ghostly noonOf mightier suns that totter down to death.Then turned they, passing from that dismal placeBlasted anew with battle, ere the swiftStriding of light athwart stupendous chasmsAnd wasteful plains, should overtake them there,Bowed with too heavy a burden of defeat.Slowly they turned, and passed upon the westWhere, like a weariness immovableIn menace huge, the plain its monstrous bulk,The peaks its hydra heads, the whole world crouchedAgainst their march with the diminished stars.
Now were the Titans gathered round their king,In a waste region slipping tow'rd the vergeOf drear extremities that clasp the world—A land half-moulded by the hasty gods,And left beneath the bright scorn of the stars,Grotesque, misfeatured, blackly gnarled with stone;Or worn and marred from conflict with the deepConterminate, of Chaos. Here they stood,Old Saturn midmost, like a central peakAmong the lesser hills that guard its base.Defeat, that gloamed within each countenanceLike the first tinge of death, upon a sunGathering like some dusk vapor, found them cold,Clumsy of limb, and halting as with weightOf threatened worlds and trembling firmaments.A wind cried round them like a trumpet-voiceOf phantom hosts—hurried, importunate,And intermittent with a tightening fear.Far off the sunset leapt, and the hard clouds,Molten among the peaks, seemed furnacesIn which to make the fetters of the world.
Seared by the lightning of the younger gods,They saw, beyond the grim and crouching hills,Those levins thrust like spears into the heartOf swollen clouds, or tearing through the skyLike severing swords. Then, as the Titans watched,The night rose like a black, enormous mistAround them, wherein naught was visibleSave the sharp levin leaping in the north;And no sound came, except of seas remote,That seemed like Chaos ravening past the vergeOf all the world, fed with the crumbling coastsOf Matter.
Till the moon, discoveringThat harsh swart wilderness of sand and stoneTissued and twisted in chaotic weld,Lit with illusory fire each Titan's form,They sate in silence, mute as stranded orbs—The wrack of Time, upcast on ruinous coasts,And in the slow withdrawal of the tideSafe for awhile. Small solace did they takeFrom that frore radiance glistering on the dullBlack desert gripped in iron silences,Like a false triumph o'er contestless fates,Or a mirage of life in wastes of Death.Yet were they moved to speak, and Saturn's voiceSeeming the soul of that tremendous landSet free in sound, startled the haughty stars.
"O Titans, gods, sustainers of the world,Is this the end? Must Earth go down to Chaos,Lacking our strength, beneath the unpracticed swayOf godlings vain, precipitate with youth,Who think, unrecking of disastrous chance,To bind their will as reins upon the sun,Or stand as columns to the ponderous heavens?Must we behold, with eyes of impotenceThat universal wrack, even though it whelmThese our usurpers in impartial doomBeneath the shards and fragments of the world?Were it not preferable to return,And meeting them in fight unswervable,Drag down the earth, ourselves, and these our foes,One sacrifice unto the gods of Chaos?Why should we stay, and live the tragedyOf power that survives its use?"
Now spakeEnceladus, when that the echoingsOf Saturn's voice had fled remote, and seemedDead thunders caught and flung from star to star;"Wouldst hurl thy kingdom down the nightward gulf,Like to a stone a curious child might castTo test the fall of some dark precipice?Patience and caution should we take as mail,Not rashness for a weapon—too keen swordThat cuts the strainèd knot of destiny,Ne'er to be tied again. Were it not bestTo watch the slow procedure of the days,That we may grasp a time more opportune,When desperation is not all our strength,Nor the foe newly filled with victory?Then may we hope to conquer back thy realmFor thee, not for the gods of nothingness."
He ceased, and after him no lesser godGave voice upon the shaken silences,None venturing to risk comparison,Inevitable then, of eloquenceWith his; but silence like the ambiguousnessOf signal and of lesser stars o'ercastAnd merged in one confusion by the moon,Possessed that multitude, till Saturn rose.Around his form the light intensified,And strengthened with addition wild and strange,Investing him as with a phantom robe,And gathering like a crown about his brow.His sword, whereon the shadows lay like rustHe took, and dipping it within the moon,Made clean its length of blade, and from it castSwift flickerings at the stars. And then his voiceCame like a torrent, and from out his eyesStreamed wilder power that mingled with the sound.
*Â *Â *Â *Â *Â Â Â *Â *Â *Â *Â Â Â *Â *Â *Â Â Â *Â *Â *
And his resurgent power, in glance and word,Poured through the Titans' souls, and was becomeThe fountains of their own, and at his flameTheir fires were lit once more, whose restlessnessLeapt and aspired against the steadfast stars.And now they turned, majestic with resolve,Where, red upon the forefront of the north,Arcturus was a beacon to the winds.And with the flickering winds, that lightly struckThe desert dust, then sprang again in air,They passed athwart the foreland of the north.
Against their march they saw the shrunken waste,A rivelled region like a world grown oldWhose sterile breast knew not the lips of LifeIn all its epoch; or a world that wasThe nurse of infant Death, ere he becameToo large, too strong for its restraining arms,And towered athwart the suns.
And there they crossedMetallic slopes that rang like monstrous shields,But gave not to their tread, and clanging plainsLike body-mail of greater, vaster gods.Where hills made gibbous shadows in the moon,They heard the eldritch laughters of the wind,Seeming the mirth of death; and 'neath their gazeGaunt valleys deepened like an old despair.Yet strode they on, through the moon's fantasies,Bold with resolve, across a land like doubt.
And now they passed among huge mountain-bulks,Themselves like peaks detached, and moving slow'Mid fettered brethren, adding weight and gloomTo that mute conclave great against the stars.Emerging thence, the Titans marched where stillTheir own portentous shadows went beforeLike night that fled but shrunk not, dusking allThat desert way.
And thus they came where Sleep,The sleep of weary victory, had seizedThe younger gods as captives, borne beyondAll flight of mounting battle-ecstasiesIn that high triumph of forgetfulness.And on that sleep the striding Titans broke,Vague and immense at first like forming dreamsTo those disturbèd gods, in mist of drowsePurblind and doubtful yet, though soon they knewTheir erst-defeated foes, and rising stoodIn silent ranks expectant, that appearedTo move, with shaking of astonished firesThat bristled forth, or were displayed like plumesLate folded close, now trembling terribly,Pending between the desert and the stars.Then, sudden as the waking from a dream,The battle leapt, where striving shapes of godsMoved brightly through the whirled and stricken air,Sweeping it to a froth of fire; and allThat ancient, deep-established desert rocked,Shaken as by an onset of the gulfsOf gathered and impatient Chaos, while,Above the place where central battle burnedThe stars drew back in fright or dazzlement,Paling to more secluded distances.Lo, where the moon had wrought illusive dreamsThat clothed the wild in doubt and fantasy,Hiding its hideousness with bright mirage,Or deepening it with gulfs and glooms of Hell,Mightier confusion, chaos absoluteUpon the imperilled sky and trembling world,Now made a certainty within itself,The one thing sure in shaken sky or world.Maelstroms of battle caught in storms of fire,Torn and involved by weaponry of gods—Crescented blades that met with rounds of shields;Grappling of shapes, seen through the riven blazeAn instant, then once more obscure, and knownOnly by giant heavings of that warOf furious gods and roused elements,Divided, leagued, contending evermoreAlong the desert—these, augmentativeRound one thick center, stunned the faltering night.
So huge that chaos, complicate withinWith movements of gigantic legionry,Antagonistic streams, impetuous-hurledWhere Jove and Saturn thunder-crested, ledIn fight unswervable—so wide the strifeOf differing impulse, that Decision foundNo foothold, till that first confusion shouldIn ordered conflict re-arrange, and standWith its true forces known. This seemed remote,With that wide struggle pending terribly,As if all-various, colored Time had madeA truce with white Eternity, and bothStood watching from afar.
Through drifts of hazeThe broadening moon, made ominous with red,Glared from the westering night. And now that warBuilt for itself, far up, a cope of cloud,And drew it down, far off, upon all sides,Impervious to the moon and sworded stars.And by their own wild light the gods fought on'Neath that stupendous concave like a skyFilled and illumed with glare of bursting suns.And cast by their own light, upon that skyThe gods' own shadows moved like shapen gloom,Phantasmagoric, changed and amplified,A shifting frieze that flickered dreadfullyIn spectral battle indecisive. Then,Swift, as it had begun, the contest turned,And on the heaving Titans' massive frontIt seemed that all the motion and the strengthSelf-thwarting and confounded, of that strife,Was flung in centered impact terrible,With rush of all that fire, tempestuous-blownAs if before some wind of further space,Striking the earth. Lo, all the Titans' flameBent back upon themselves, and they were hurledIn vaster disarray, with vanguard piledOn rear and center. Saturn could not stemThe loosened torrents of long-pent defeat;He, with his host, was but as drift thereon,Borne wildly down the whelmed and reeling world.
Hurling like slanted rain, the lurid levinFell o'er that flight of Titans, and behind,In striding menace, all-victorious JoveLoomed like some craggy cloud with thunders crownedAnd footed with the winds. In that defeat,With Jove's pursuit involved and manifold,Few found escape unscathed, and some went downLike senile suns that grapple with the dark,And reel in flame tremendous, and are still.
Ebbing, the battle left those elder godsUpcast once more on coasts of black defeat—Gripped in despair, a vaster Tartarus.The victor gods, their storms and thunders spent,Went dwindling northward like embattled clouds,And where the lingering haze of fight dissolved,The pallor of the dawn began to spreadOn darkness purple like the pain of Death.Ringed with that desolation, Saturn stoodMute, and the Titans answered unto himWith brother silence. Motionless, they seemedSome peristyle or range of columns great,Alone enduring of a fallen faneIn deserts of some vaster world whence LifeAnd Faith have vanished long, that vaguely slipsTo an immemoried end. And twilight slowCrept round those lofty shapes august, and seemedSuch as might be the faltering ghostly noonOf mightier suns that totter down to death.
Then turned they, passing from that dismal placeBlasted anew with battle, ere the swiftStriding of light athwart stupendous chasmsAnd wasteful plains, should overtake them there,Bowed with too heavy a burden of defeat.Slowly they turned, and passed upon the westWhere, like a weariness immovableIn menace huge, the plain its monstrous bulk,The peaks its hydra heads, the whole world crouchedAgainst their march with the diminished stars.